Hospital da Luz Centro Clínico Digital (Hospital da Luz Digital Clinical Centre), created in 2007 and with unique characteristics in Portugal, “has been an example of success”, especially concerning videoconsultations , that allow doctors to follow up efficiently chronic diseases, in all comfort for patients and with their active participation in managing their own health. This was the starting point of the intervention by José Ferreira Santos , cardiologist and clinical director of Hospital da Luz Setúbal, in the Portuguese Congress of Cardiology (CPC 2020) , which took place between 6 and 8 November, this time on digital format. José Ferreira Santos participated in one of the round tables in the first day of the congress, about telecardiology and examples of success in Portugal, which had the moderation of Daniel Ferreira , clinical director of Hospital da Luz Centro Clínico Digital. “The Digital Clinical Centre operates as a digital hospital, with three pillars: health data introduction, videoconsultations for the follow-up of chronic diseases, and emergency videoconsultations (on demand)”, he explained. Since 2017 until present, the number of videoconsultations carried out has been consistently growing, but it suffered an exponential increase with covid-19 pandemic. The specialist stressed the differences compared with traditional teleconsultations: “Telemedicine and teleconsultations arose to respond to the absence of a doctor in certain locations and the distance the patients were of the hospital”; “Presently, the focus is rather on the needs of the patient, who wants to be involved and play a decisive role in his own treatment, to have easy access to his doctor and to engage with healthcare, the same way he engages with other services. We must be capable of offering the patient more than ‘you must come to the hospital, just because!’”; “There are consultations where physical examination is essential. But there are several other clinical situations, in the follow-up of chronic disease, where the purpose of the consultation is to review analyses, exam results and/or adjust therapeutics, and where the physical examination can be omitted and videoconsultations may be a valid alternative to in-person consultation”; “We prefer videoconsultations to other type of teleconsultations (such as phone consultation, for instance), for they allow a visualization of the patient in real time: we can see the patient’s reactions and understand better his doubts and questions”; “ Videoconsultation presupposes that there is a clinical record associated to the consultation, and that there is a plan of treatment, just as in an in-person consultation. The only difference is that we cannot perform a physical examination, but all the rest should happen: the clinical interview, evaluation of exams and the definition of a plan of treatment”; “To be able to schedule a videoconsultation, the patient must already have had at least one previous in-person consultation with his doctor. Furthermore, at least one in-person consultation per year is obligatory, when the chronic disease is stabilized”. Watch the interview with José Ferreira Santos
