The Congress is organized by the Cardioinfantil Foundation – Cardiology Institute, with the participation of high level national and international representatives.

Furthermore, the event will offer 3 Pre-Congress Workshops and has 9 international conference speakers from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and the United Kingdom.

The event will also include the launch of the Colombian IT Healthcare Association – ACIESA. 

FOR YOUR CALENDAR.

As part of its presentation of financial results, Apple's representative, Tim Cook, and his vice-president and director of finances Peter Oppenheimer, presented a project with the Colombian Cardiovascular Foundation supported by the National Educational Service (Sena) as a successful case study in Latin America.

According to the directors of the technology giant, the initiative, led by the Cardiovascular Foundation, is a diagnostic imaging solution that helps to save lives through the healthcare services it provides to the most remote areas of the country, through mobile devices. 

Two weeks before, Apple had contacted the Foundation to inform them that, among hundreds of case studies worldwide, their initiative, based in Floridablanca, Santander, had been selected for presentation as a successful case study of the proper use of technology.

“It can also be applied to patients in intensive care units, as it allows the monitoring of vital signs. In addition we have nuclear medicine, CAT scans, ultrasounds, mammograms, and angiograms, amongst others. The most important progress in the project was achieved thanks to the support of Sena, by which we have moved into the age of mobile devices, making telemedicine more accessible,” explained Gilberto Reyes Ortiz, Director of Information and Communications Technologies at the Cardiovascular Foundation, speaking to the El Tiempo newspaper.

With the objective of promoting recent advances in science and biomedical technology, the 5th Colombian Congress on Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering and the 8th  Panamerican Health Care Exchanges Conference will be held simultaneously. Both events, aimed at publicizing scientific progress, have established themselves as leading international gatherings in academic and scientific spheres related to biomedicine and bioengineering.  

The events will cover the following topics: Bio-instrumentation, Bio-signals, Medical Imaging, Bio-materials, Modeling and Simulation, Nanotechnology, Biomechanics and Rehabilitation, Clinical and Hospital Engineering, Bio-Computing, Medical IT, Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, and Biotechnology in Bioengineering.

The activities will be offered in the two official languages – Spanish and English – and will take different forms: mini-symposiums, master conferences, themed halls with free oral presentations of current work, a poster session, and business demonstrations. They will also include exhibitions of technological and service products.

In a space that includes participants from several different regions, the event seeks to bring together the clinical-hospital sector, the bioengineering industry, research and development groups, academic programs and scientific organizations.

Javier Colorado, Vice-Director of Promotion and Prevention at the Ladera Health Network, a non-profit organization in Cali State was at the Las Mercedes Penitentiary in Cartago presenting a pilot healthcare project they are leading.  

 “We want to introduce a technological healthcare solution with telemedicine,” said Colorado. This consists of specialized virtual medical consultations that patients can access easily, in which an inmate can be assessed by a specialist at the health center in Cali. Waiting periods for medical consults could be as short as 7 days, a large reduction on current periods, which can be as long as 3 months and the system would also avoid the need for physical transfers.

For telemedicine, specialized medical care teams are needed, as the patients’ assessment is sent over the Internet to the medical specialist in real time. “The diagnosis is reliable, as the specialist is a supported by the doctor and the necessary tests and will thus be able to guide the patient’s treatment,” added Vice-Director Javier Colorado.

Karla Liliana Torres, Director of the Penitentiary in Cartago, stated that this would be an opportunity to reduce the congestion of legal proceedings as there are currently around 85 inmates who require different specialties and many of them present petitions and claims in order to gain access to these services.

These challenges have been studied by different organizations such as the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) and are on the agendas of governments and multinationals such as IBM who estimate that by the year 2015, the quantity of healthcare information exchanged electronically across the world will exceed the flow of information from the financial, industrial, business and government sectors.

Together with situations unique to the Colombian context: 1) The target for connectivity proposed for institutions in the healthcare sector included in the National Plan for Information and Communications Technologies; 2) The obligatory application of unique electronic health records before the 31st of December 2013 (Law 1438 of 2011) and 3) The implementation of guidelines for the development of telehealth (Law 1419 of 2010) are just a sample of the required transformation in the healthcare sector and the challenges that face different organizations and actors involved in the system. The Universidad of Rosario in Bogotá D.C. Colombia, aware of these challenges and opportunities for improvement in the healthcare sector, with the support of datasalud informatica SAS, has gathered national and international experts in issues such as interoperability in healthcare, international healthcare standards, electronic health records, and  ICTs in healthcare, amongst others, to offer the first diploma in Shared Electronic Health Records and Interoperability in Healthcare.    

The academic program of the diploma was designed for professionals in different disciplines including: healthcare sector managers, healthcare sector professionals (doctors, physiotherapists, nurses, dentists, public health workers, etc.), applied software developers, administrators, university professors, computer engineers, biomedical engineers, electronics engineers, industrial engineers and consultants linked to clinics, hospitals, EPS, and ARP; among other actors. This diploma was held between August 24th and November 3rd 2012, with a total of 100 class hours and had sixteen (16) participants including doctors, computer engineers, biomedical technicians, ICT technicians and administrators, all of whom had experience in the healthcare sector and belonged to companies such as the Fundación Cardio Infantil, the Instituto del corazón de Bucaramanga, Compensar, Saludcoop, Heon, CLTech, Dinámica Gerencial, Timed S.A, Jaime Torres and Cia, Casallas Ingenieros Asesores SAS, amongst others. Due to the success of the academic program, the Universidad de Rosario will hold new editions of the diploma in 2013. Congratulations go to the first group of healthcare interoperability analysts who received their diploma on the 3rd of November 2012.     Special thanks go to the diploma faculty:  Dra Nathalia Ortega (Colombia).Ing Mario Enrique Cortés (Colombia).Ing. Diego Mauricio López PhD (Colombia).Dr Alonso Verdugo (Colombia).Ing Emilio Alvarado (Colombia).Sr Diego Kaminker (Argentina).Ing Pablo Pazos (Uruguay).Dr Luís Miguel Marquez (México).Dra Selene Indarte (Uruguay).Dr Julio Lorca (España).Dr Daniel Luna (Argentina).Ing Dolores Ojeda Carreño (México). For further information contact the InfoRosario line at 4225321 in Bogotá, 01 8000 511 888 outside Bogotá, the mobile line on 3202306178 or email paula.martinez@urosario.edu.co, ortega.gisel@ur.edu.co with your name, I.D. address, telephone number and email. Source: hl7es.blogspot.com.ar