“90% of Primary Care (PC) doctors demand more technology to have a greater resolution capacity that favors the patient”, underlined Antonio Fernández-Pro, president of the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians (SEMG) and Dr. Lorenzo Armenteros, head of the New Technologies Group of the SEMG
At a press conference, the two specialists, within the framework of the XXVIII National Congress of General and Family Medicine, which is being held in Bilbao until Saturdayhave highlighted the role of new technologies in the PA of the future.
“We must try to get all the technology that can be closer to the patient out of the hospital; it is a question, Fernández-Pro has insisted, of bringing all diagnostic means closer to PC consultations and that the hospital dedicates itself to the most serious patients”.
Antonio Fernández-Pro, pte. of the SEMG.
Modernize the PA
The pandemic has highlighted the shortcomings of the health system. “It is time to modernize the first level of care consultations, taking advantage of the latest technological advances, always keeping the users of the system on point”, the specialists have claimed.
“Furthermore, hePatients appreciate that PC doctors speed up their diagnostic tests; therefore, politicians would have to invest more in technology for the AP. If they don’t do it for themselves, let them do it for their patients,” he recommended. Fernández-Pro.
Along these lines, Dr. Lorenzo Armenteros has shown his disappointment with the Minister of Health for announcing, without taking into account the AP, “a millionaire investment of more than 400 million for hospital technology.”
Armenteros has also referred to the SEMG’s firm commitment to the use of algorithmic medicine that supports the health professional when making decisions in a more agile and accurate way.
algorithmic medicine
This, as he explained, would be carried out with the introduction into the system of algorithms useful for clinical practice, which would replace the traditional action protocols on paper and which, depending on the patient’s symptoms, would guide, always under the criteria of the medical professional, the actions to be carried out with the patient: request for tests and analytics, treatment, referral to the hospital level, etc.
“Algorithmic medicine has nothing to do with robotic medicine; it is not regarding replacing the doctor with a robotbut with the advancement of technology, give more security to doctors and patients”, added Armenteros.
The two specialists have recognized that when the level of knowledge is so high, they need support that speeds up their work and diagnoses, “and even more so considering the limited time we have to attend to our patients.”
Algorithmic medicine will indicate at all times what to do and what not to do, “but the Primary Care doctor never loses control because clinical judgment prevails”.
They wanted to make it clear thatthe machine does not do it, professionals do it with the available evidence and the medical actions vary depending on the symptoms and the degree of involvement”.
Armenteros, from the New Technologies Group of the SEMG.
devices
From the SEMG they consider, as Fernández-Pro and Armenteros have pointed out, that the use of mobile applications and other devices should be implemented in consultation wearables that allow remote monitoring of the clinical parameters of patients.
“In my office I have obsolete technology and in most centers the same thing happens; they are not investing so that PC specialists can be more resolute”, the president of the SEMG has visibly upset.
The new technologies would allow, on the one hand, to have greater control by health professionals and, on the other hand, better self-control by the patient himself. “The remote monitoring of levels in relation to blood pressure, glycosylated hemoglobin, weight gain, pulse, etc. with continuous measurements that obtain the average and not only record specific moments, but also allow the location of peaks and risk situations, and act accordingly. this provides greater prognostic and diagnostic value that is for the benefit of the patient”, recognized Armenteros
With this same line of argument, in order to achieve greater self-management of the pathology, the specialists of the SEMG They see it as necessary for the electronic medical record to leave the PC center.
“The patient has to have access to their data and, at the same time, they must have the possibility of new information in relation to measurable parameters regarding their ailment”, stressed Armenteros.
gender perspective
The two specialists have also stressed the need to move towards more personalized treatment models, also taking into account the gender perspective.
“Individualized treatments, for example, in chronic diseases that do not differentiate between men and women, because in most of the clinical trials they included males in their sample”, explained Armenteros.
In fact, some of the medications currently prescribed include doses that in their day “were indicated for men weighing 80 kilograms. And these doses would have to be adapted to the characteristics of women.”
Lorenzo Armenteros and Fernandez-Pro at the press conference.
Metadata and Big data
In the opinion of the specialists, the fact that doctors had access to metadata and Big data from PC consultations would allow searching for the profiles of similar patients in which the doses of the drugs were effective, a very valuable information but that is available in very few regional health services.
From the SEMG they have advocated in the Bilbao Congress for the change towards more individualized treatment models “That leads us to have queries with greater resolving capacity“.
For this, they must be provided with more diagnostic means, as well as more participatory and shared consultations, both with the hospital level and with the patient himself, always through secure connections that safeguard the rights of users”.
Because, with a resolute PA, the health system improves and makes it last. “If we don’t provide it with more resources, in primary school we will become hospital automatons. The AP is a health jewel that must be safeguarded ”, Fernández-Pro has sentenced.