A bit of history (1)

We will conduct a historical review of the evolution of telemedicine in Extremadura, or rather, the initiatives undertaken by the SES and the Junta de Extremadura when developing its e-health platform.

We were in 2002, thanks to the political initiative showed by the Junta de Extremadura, It did an analysis about situation of the health needs in this region and was verified:

1 - Due to the large size of the community composed of the two provinces with the largest area of ​​Spanish territory, with 21,766 sq km Badajoz and Caceres with 19,868 square km in total 8.25% of the country. It is necessary to find a solution when large displacements save the hospital.

2 - The low density of 26.36 people per km (2008), with a total population of 1,097,744 inhabitants which represents 2.38% of the total population of Spain (2008), leads to the existence of multiple locations with a small population, which makes it very difficult to bring specialized medical care to all those locations.

3 - The high rate of population aged 65 years, between 19-23% Cáceres and Badajoz between 17-19% (2005). In these patients causes major difficulties in carrying out movements.

We develop a telemedicine pilot program between the towns of Olivenza and Badajoz Provincial Hospital for six months, the SES with the help of the company VitelNet Inc., developed the pilot program with a satisfactory result and after a positive assessment, the authorities health, make the decision to extend this experience to the 8 areas of the Autonomous Community Health.

During the year 2003, 29 installing telemedicine stations, 18 of them in different health centers and 11 in referral hospitals in each health area. The telemedicine project is organized so that each hospital coverage for health centers in your area. The Health Intranet available to the SES allows these centers to communicate with each other, providing them with lines bandwidth of 2MB, regardless of the area under pertenezcan.Y VitelNet Inc is responsible for providing the SES a telemedicine stations that allow connections High quality video conferencing and fast file uploads, thanks to its application Medvizer. The sites selected by the health authorities were:

Infanta Cristina Hospital (Badajoz)
Perpetuo Socorro Hospital(Badajoz)
Mérida Hospital
Don Benito/Villanueva Hospital
Llerena Hospital
Zafra Hospital
San Pedro de Alcántara Hospital (Cáceres)
Virgen de la Montaña Hospital(Cáceres)
Virgen del puerto Hospital (Plasencia)
Coria Hospital
Campo Arañuelo Hospital(Navalmoral de la Mata)
Olivenza Health Center
Montijo Health Center
Jerez de los Caballeros Health Center
San Vicente de Alcántara Health Center
Villafranca de los Barros Health Center
Cabeza del Buey Health Center

Herrera del Duque Health Center
Azuaga Health Center
Monesterio Health Center
Fregenal de la Sierra Health Center
Logrosan Health Center
Trujillo Health Center
Navas del Madroño Health Center
Valencia de Alcántara Health Center
Hoyos Health Center
Nuñomoral Health Center
Jaraiz de la Vera Health Center
Bohonal de Íbor Health Center