On Tuesday, day 30/6, were inaugurated seven units of the University Telemedicine Network (Rute), a project coordinated by the National Network of Education and Research (RNP) and integrated into the Brazil Telehealth Network program. The beneficiaries were the Hospital Barão de Lucena (Recife - PE), Hospital Cristo Redentor e Fêmina, both from the Grupo Hospitalar Conceição (Porto Alegre - RJ) and the units of Sarah Network of Rehabilitation Hospitals in Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Belém ( PA), Fortaleza (CE) and Macapá (AP).

The joint opening ceremony was conducted by the national coordinator of Rute, Luiz Ary Messina, present at the headquarters of Sarah Network of Rehabilitation Hospitals, in Brasília, next to the president of the network, Lucia Villadino Braga, and vice-president of the Brazilian Company Hospital Services (Ebserh), Jeanne Michel, who opened the event. She stressed the importance of the process for the formation of human resources and the improvement of health care quality. "The University Hospitals (HUs) were the first to integrate Rute. The partnership progressed in an extraordinary way, and each time the University Telemedicine Network is enlarged, increasing the population to care possibilities. That's the biggest gain we have, "said the executive. From the 50 existing HUs in Brazil, 30 of them are under the management of Ebserh.

Then the president of Sarah Network made a brief presentation on the importance of new telemedicine units. "Network Sarah is very happy to be integrated with in Rute. This opens the prospect of greater contact of Sarah with all other institutions working with telemedicine and research, for example, so we can create large databases and multicenter studies. The possibilities in this interaction of production and generation of integrated knowledge with various centers of Brazil are wonderful, "said Lucia Villadino.

At the event, there were presented the engineers and specialists from the Sarah telemedicine units in Rio de Janeiro, Belém, Fortaleza and Macapa, as well as the coordinator of the telemedicine unit of the Hospital Barão de Lucena, Gracília da Conceição Silveira de Barros, who highlighted the work done by referencial hospital in Recife.

The coordinator of the unit Rute at the Grupo Hospitalar Conceição, responsible for hospitals Cristo Redentor and Fêmina, Sergio Sirena, and the director-superintendent of the group, Sandra Maria Sales, welcomed everyone and passed the word to the hospitals managers of Femina, Paul Bobek and of Cristo Redentor, Walter Henrique Broock Neto. Both presented the work done by hospitals, respectively: the Femina specializes in maternal and child care and the Cristo Redentor in the trauma area.

Also attended the ceremony representatives of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) of Brazil. The general coordinator of International Cooperation Multilateral Projects, Barbara Sant'anna, shared with all the dream of bringing Rute throughout Latin America. "We are already making joints and have almost all the capitals of the countries in South America connected and hopefully lead to Rute for hospitals of our Latin American partners," he said. Carolina Rezende, from the general coordination of Biotechnology and Health, said that "for the ministry, Rute is extremely important for the development of Primary Health Care in Brazil".

By videoconference, Rute coordinator of the Integrative Medicine Institute Professor Fernando Figueira (IMIP), Jeane Couto, congratulated the new units being integrated into the network and the National Coordinator of Telehealth Brazil Networks program, Tâmara Guedes, explained the support of the Ministry of Health to the initiative Rute. "We expect that the incorporation of new services within this network to expand telehealth and telemedicine debates in the country, contributing to the education of discussion and research within hospitals and leading a differentiated training for the public health system," said Tâmara .

With the seven new units, Rute is replaced by 115 units opened and fully operational, located in university and teaching hospitals in all states of Brazil. Among other objectives, the network integrates and connects all public university hospitals and teaching, formally creates telemedicine cores, supports videoconferencing, data analysis, diagnosis, second opinion, including training, and lifelong learning, and web conferencing, between hospitals college and universities by the RNP, and allows integration with state and local health departments, basic health units and inside the hospitals.