Telemedicine in the driver's seat: new role for primary care access in Brazil and Canada: The Besrour Papers: a series on the state of family medicine in Canada and Brazil

• Published in: Canadian family physician 2020-02, Vol.66 (2), p.104-111
• Main Authors: Agarwal, Payal, Kithulegoda, Natasha, Umpierre, Roberto, Pawlovich, John, Pfeil, Juliana Nunes, D'Avila, Otavio Pereira, Goncalves, Marcelo, Harzheim, Erno, Ponka, David
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Brazil; Canada; Humans; Practice; Primary Health Care - methods; Rural Population; Telemedicine - methods
• ISSN: 0008-350X; 1715-5258

To contrast how Brazil's and Canada's different jurisdictional and judicial realities have led to different types of telemedicine and how further scale and improvement can be achieved. A subgroup of the Besrour Centre of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and Canadian telemedicine experts developed connections with colleagues in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and collaborated to undertake a between-country comparison of their respective telemedicine programs. Following a literature review, the authors collectively reflected on their experiences in an attempt to explore the past and current state of telemedicine in Canada and Brazil. Both Brazil and Canada share expansive geographies, creating substantial barriers to health for rural patients. Telemedicine is an important part of a universal health system. Both countries have achieved telemedicine programs that have scaled up across large regions and are showing important effects on health care costs and outcomes. However, each system is unique in design and implementation and faces unique challenges for further scale and improvement. Addressing regional differences, the normalization of telemedicine, and potential alignment of telemedicine and artificial intelligence technologies for health care are seen as promising approaches to scaling up and improving telemedicine in both countries.