GHT was born from the experience of the DREAM program and it counts 15 years of experience within the telemedicine in Africa.
In 2016 a new “web_based” platform was realized, with a particular feature: it can also work offline, which is quite relevant feature for many rural sanitary centers who don’t have a not stable connection.
This software allows to connect doctors and nurses from a peripheral health center with a network of specialists who will reply to the medical question with diagnostic and therapeutic suggestions, according to the required medical branch and language.
This network is now made up by 30 health centers involved in 13 countries: all engaged specialists relate to 18 medical branches and they are more or less 140 professionals, most of them from Italy but some from other European medical centers of excellence.
The medical specialties now available are: cardiology, radiology, surgery, infectious diseases, dermatology, hematology, neurology, ophthalmology, internal medicine, endocrinology, ortho, urology, angio, gastroenterology, oncology, nephrology, burn center.
Every request can be sent to a single doctor or group of doctors belonging to the required specialised branch.
Radiographies, photographies, electrocardiograms, procedures, blood and other diagnostic tests can be attached to each teleconsultation.
A Center of Service supervises the functioning of the platform. It is mainly made up of nurses and it intervenes when necessary to guarantee the conclusion of every teleconsultation request. Training of applicant personnel is essential not only for the correct use of this software but mostly to deepen every aspect of medical semiotics: to have a good answer you should ask a good question. For the purpose of helping the applicant doctor, the platform includes the chance of using “specialized wizards” that guide doctors or nurses to a good formulation of the question, by avoiding to forget relevant information or details.
GHT also guarantees both a health and technology help desk to provide assistance when necessary…
The platform works offline too and it provides the chance of sending and receiving data later when the connection becomes available. This feature is essential as it allows to work also when there is no connection.
The organizational model, active for over five years, is specified as follows: