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O.M. Hernández Orobio1,2,3, M.L. González Doníz2, R. González Cabanach2
1Fundación IDEAL para la Rehabilitación Integral Julio H. Calonje, Cali, Colombia, 2Universidade da Coruña, PhD Health, Disability, Dependency and Well-being, Coruña, Spain, 3Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia
Background: Access to health services has been difficult despite the provisions of the Comprehensive Social Security System and the Comprehensive Health Care Policy in Colombia; currently the COVID-19 pandemic has been identified as another barrier to access to these services. In many countries, information, and communication technologies have contributed to access to health services; their use, application and scope currently define their numerous possibilities. In Colombia, telerehabilitation is an emerging issue, which is framed within the scope of telemedicine; this is defined as the provision of health services at a distance, which includes aspects of promotion, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation, by health professionals, who use communication technologies to facilitate access and opportunity in the provision of rehabilitation services.
Purpose: To describe the experience in telerehabilitation at an institution located in the southwest of Colombia, “Fundación IDEAL para la rehabiitación integral Julio H Calonje", (IDEAL Foundation for the integral rehabilitation "Julio H. Calonje").
Methods: Descriptive observational study; stage: first phase of experience documentary review in the implementation and development of Telerehabilitation, at the institution.
Results: IDEAL Foundation for the integral rehabilitation "Julio H. Calonje" , began implementing the use of communication technologies in 2017 to strengthen the current model of care and administration of the rehabilitation program in the City of Cali, department of Cauca Valley, and the Department of Amazonas with Community Participation. The program was adapted technologically to develop the model of attention in telerehabilitation. It continued through 2018, performing interventions that included: functional and psychosocial clinical evaluation, consultations, and therapeutic sessions through virtual spaces; in addition to tele-education through orientation and training actions were implemented. These interactions served diverse users: families and/or primary caretakers, community agents, health professionals and other actors, from sectors that are co-responsible for the care and/or inclusion of people with disabilities, such as employees of territorial entities, educators and employers, among others.
Conclusion(s): In Colombia, particularly due to the difficulties presented by its geographical and economic conditions for mobility to health care centers, telerehabilitation, is present as a resource of technological innovation and services. This kind of conditions greatly favor access to and use of telerehabilitation services by the population with disabilities or at risk of acquiring them.
Implications: Telerehabilitation is a mode of service delivery in rehabilitation that enhances the capabilities of the health system to optimize the health of the population of those who have difficulties in accessing and using health services.
Funding, acknowledgements: Self-funded by principal investigator
Keywords: Telemedicine, Telerehabilitation, Health Services Accessibility
Topic: Globalisation: health systems, policies & strategies
Did this work require ethics approval? Yes
Institution: Fundación IDEAL para la rehabilitación integral Julio H. Calonje
Committee: The Research Ethics Committee of the Fundación IDEAL
Ethics number: 05-A03-2017
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
