Best of São Paulo: SUS and Metro win in public service – 04/28/2023 – The best of São Paulo

The Municipal Secretary of Health of São Paulo invests to consolidate a tool that provides the glycemic level of insulin-dependent diabetics who are treated in basic health units on a daily basis in the SP e-health application.

The project is part of the efforts of the municipal department to modernize and streamline the service at the end of the SUS, elected for the third consecutive time the best public service in the city by the population of classes A and B, according to a Datafolha survey. This year, 15% of respondents chose the Unified Health System and the Metro.

Last year, SUS carried out almost 28 million consultations in São Paulo. 1.3 million glycosylated hemoglobin measurements were also carried out on the network.

The initiative is part of the PAMG (Glycemic Self-Monitoring Program), which today provides 128,000 people with a glucometer, a device used to measure blood glucose levels, in addition to strips, lancets and other supplies for controlling patient levels.

The idea of ​​the municipal government is that the recorded results are transferred to e-health SP on a daily basis, increasing the application’s database.

This sharing is possible because each device can connect, via bluetooth, with the app. Thus, each patient can, when measuring their glycemic level, open the platform and transfer the data stored in the glucometer to the application.

The records are then monitored in real time by a secretariat team. If the patient’s glycemic level is not controlled, the system issues a red signal. Then, the folder contacts the patient’s reference UBS, and the professionals of that unit are instructed to look for it to check the reasons for this change.

“With this, we can see if the patient is not following the proper guidelines or if his organism is resistant to the treatment”, says Maurício Serpa, assistant secretary of Health for São Paulo.

Today, in theory, the 128,000 users included in Pamg are already able to take advantage of this tool. In practice, however, the system is leaner. That’s because not everyone knows how to use the bluetooth connection.

In these cases, data transfer is carried out by health professionals at the UBSs when users go to the units to collect more supplies. But, generally speaking, patients who use insulin once a day need to go to the units every two months, which negates the possibility of follow-up in
real time.

Furthermore, not all network professionals know how to use this technology — the tool was initially introduced in the last quarter of 2022. Sheet he was at a UBS in March and spoke with a health professional at the unit. According to her, in practice, the initiative is still going at a slow pace, precisely because of this type of problem.

On the other hand, there is a consensus that the system, when fully operational, will add a lot to the units’ routine.

For the tool to be fully integrated into the city’s basic care, all UBSs need to be directly connected to the digital network of the secretariat or the Ministry of Health.

Currently, according to the municipal folder, 28% of the 470 units in the capital of São Paulo still feed the network indirectly — in these cases, the medical records of each patient are still physical and need to be inserted into the network by the unit’s administrative team.

The government estimate is that all units will be computerized by next year.

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SUS

15% of mentions
Foundation 1988
Employees 104,000 linked to the SUS in the city of São Paulo
Units 1,027 facilities in the city of SP, including 470 UBSs
Attendances 27.9 million consultations in units of the Municipal Health Secretariat of SP in 2022