The year of 2014 had a good end to RUTE, the brazilian University Telemedicine Network, project coordinated by the National Research and Education Network (RNP). In December, seven new telemedicine units were inaugurated in Brazil.

The beneficiaries were the Amparo Maternal Hospital (SP), the Oswaldo Cruz German Hospital (SP), the Women Hospital "Prof. Dr. Jose Aristodemo Pinotti" (Campinas - SP), the Integrated Health Center "Amaury de Medeiros" (Recife - PE) and the units of Sarah Network of Rehabilitation Hospitals in Salvador (BA), São Luís (MA) and Belo Horizonte (MG).

The joint opening ceremony was conducted by the National Coordinator of RUTE, Luiz Ary Messina, through videoconference, directly from the unit of RNP in Rio de Janeiro. He received the visit of the coordinator of the e-Portuguese Network, of the World Health Organization (WHO), Regina Ungerer, who also attended the event and began the ceremony.

Directly from Brasilia, the central unit of Sarah Network, the president and Dr. Lucia Willadino Braga welcomed the opportunity to integration to RUTE and said that there are plans to open telemedicine stations in the network units in Belém, Macapá, Fortaleza and Rio de Janeiro. Then, she passed the word to the directors of the units of Sarah who were inaugurating their telemedicine centers: Dr. Antonio Pedro Vargas, in Belo Horizonte, Dr. Ivar Viana Brandi, in Salvador, and Dr. Cesar Ricardo Campello Simioni, in São Luís. All of them presented the work which was done and stressed the importance of being part of RUTE. Some of them are already part of the network SIGs.

Representing the other inaugurated cores, attended the ceremony the associate director of the Women Hospital “Prof. Dr. Jose Aristodemo Pinotti”, Dr. José Roberto Erbolatto Gabiatti, who spoke about the participation in RUTE, the telemedicine coordinator of the Oswaldo Cruz German Hospital, prof. Roberto Carneiro de Oliveira, who is already thinking about creating a SIG about strokes, and the director of the Integrated Health Center "Amaury de Medeiros", Dr. Olimpio Morais, who, accompanied by the prof. Raul Melo, from the Telemedicine Center of the University of Pernambuco, mentioned the advantage of being integrated to RUTE.

From the Amparo Maternal Hospital, in addition to the executive director, prof. Junia Cordeiro, was present the Vice President of the Brazilian Council of Telemedicine (CBMT), professor and doctor Ana Estela Haddad, who congratulated all for the work which was done and presented the project Telehealth São Paulo. Ana Estela was part of the team that developed the Telehealth Brazil Networks, an initiative of the Ministry of Health that seeks to improve the quality of the care and the primary care in the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) and that is integrated to RUTE.

With the seven new telemedicine units, RUTE has now 108 opened and full operating centers, located in universities and teaching hospitals in all states of Brazil. Among other goals, the network integrates and connects all the university and teaching public hospitals, formally creates telemedicine cores, supports videoconferencing, analysis of diagnosis, second opinion, training and continued education and web conferencing between university hospitals and universities, through RNP, as well as allows integration with state and local health departments, basic health units and inland hospitals. Currently, RUTE has about 60 Special Interest Groups in various specialties and subspecialties of the Health, with 600 sessions video and web conferences per year.

For more information, please visit www.rute.rnp.br