REGGIO EMILIA LOCAL HEALTH AUTHORITY
used technology for getting in touch with patients and sent more than a million SMS messages during the pandemic .
“ This proved to be extremely effective in terms of keeping in touch , especially as we had a very simple link that anybody on a smartphone could open up and then interact with us on the website or through an app .
“ It is all about making existing technology configurable and flexible and if this technology is used properly and widely it gives me hope for the evolution of e-health .” spread . “ They had to rely on the numbers that I gave them to make decisions on the management of hospital beds . It was now like landing a plane in fog : you have to rely and trust your data ,” said Foracchia .
“ This change brought up the importance of technologies . Suddenly the Electronic Medical Record ( EMR ) for counting and tracking the evolution of COVID-19 infections became the most useful tool and the health authority was demanding more from their ICT managers .”
“ This was not about trend technology like Artificial Intelligence , it was about using simple technology to analyse big numbers and using it seriously . We also
“ We also used technology for getting in touch with patients and sent more than a million SMS messages during the pandemic ”
MARCO FORACCHIA CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER , REGGIO EMILIA LOCAL HEALTH AUTHORITY
Roots of telemedicine Telemedicine started within the health authority 15 years ago to ensure patients have access to information . “ If a patient is in the mountains and has diabetes we don ’ t want them to come down to the hospital every month - this is an example of the basic roots of our telemedicine approach as we want to keep them comfortable and away from the central hospital . This was especially true during the pandemic ,” commented Foracchia .
“ Today , we have moved towards a more sophisticated form of telemedicine , which has been accelerated due to the pandemic , but the philosophy is still there ,” said Foracchia , who pointed out once COVID-19 hit all information about the pandemic was centralised at Santa Maria Nuova Provincial Hospital .
“ Telemedicine allowed us to follow the progress of COVID-19 patients at home rather than admit them to hospital . Their condition would have been stable and we were able to monitor them and contact them frequently . But not only the patients , their families , their contacts , every person that had been in contact was put in quarantine and we had to keep in touch with them .
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