Telenursing in Primary Health Care: Report of Experience in Southern Brazil

The Rio Grande do Sul Telematics and Telehealth kernel in Brazil, aims to enhance the quality of the Unified Health System (UHS) in support of primary health care (PHC) services, most of them engaged in the Family Health Program (FHP). Among the initiatives of the TeleHealth Rio Grande do Sul, there is consulting via e-mail and videoconference. They are requested and answered using specific forms available on TeleHealth's intranet. This study registers the experience on supporting and answering demands using clinical evidence, and presents professional characteristics and some results reached until now. Data related to professional characteristics were extracted from a questionnaire prepared by the program execution team, and applied during training sessions in 2007 and 2008. Consults sent by nurses, technicians and community health agents were analyzed considering its number and content. The analyzed sample of nurses showed that 89.1% were female, 40% younger than 30 years old and the majority graduated within the past 5 years. Most of them (97) work for the FHP and 51.61% have a pos graduate degree. Most of the interviewed nurses use e-mail to communicate and the internet at least once a week. So far, the program TeleHealth Rio Grande do Sul have received 498 consult requests, 111 related to the nursing field. The nurses answer nursing related doubts, sent by nursing technicians and community health agents. The consults involve several different subjects, mainly on wounds, woman health, drugs and medicines. Considering the consults demanded, the group decided to create health care protocols, starting with the most requested subjects, such as the wounds, which is about to be released on the Rio Grande do Sul TeleHealth website.