A telessaúde como ferramenta de educação permanente dos profissionais de saúde offshore

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Telemedicine and Telehealth refer to the use of information technology and communications in the provision of health-related services, in cases when distance, difficulty of access and time are critical factors, favoring the permanent education (PE) of health professionals, who need to be constantly updated. Considering that Brazil is a country with continental dimension and unequal territorial distribution of professionals and services, it becomes crucial to train professionals in remote areas. Thus, the Distance Education Modality (DEM) emerges as a tool that assists the DEM of these professionals because it is low cost, more comfortable, allows the professional to manage their time and participate in the process of building their learning, as well as sharing experience with other professionals. Considering the offshore segment, which operates in a high risk remote area and with an expressive population, where there is a single health professional responsible for the health of the workers, it is necessary to qualify this one for a safe practice. This professional works with the imminent possibility of a disaster, and must be prepared to assist multiple victims. However, despite the complexity and diversity of the activities of the offshore health professional, and its responsibility for countless lives; there is no school in the Brazilian academy specialized in training this kind of professional. Similarly, there is little academic literature on the subject, given this lack of knowledge about the offshore health professional and the dichotomy that is the need for training and the absence of specific academic training, this study aimed to analyze the profile, training and training needs of offshore health professionals in order to create a suitable course for this public through the DEM. This quantitative and qualitative study evaluated 67 on-board health professionals working on offshore units of private companies in Brazil, being 72% were nurses (n=48) and 28% doctors (n=19). Of the respondents, 75% reported having had difficulties on the first shipment, 98,5% believe there is a need for training for the offshore health professional and 94% stated that they would take a DEM course. In the second phase it was structured a DEM test course on the format of video lessons in which the learning was assessed through the performance on pre and post tests and the DEM course through self-filling instrument. It was observed that leaners had significant improvement in their grades when comparing the pre-test with the post-test, showing the effectiveness of the course proposal regarding the learning acquired by the participants. The students were satisfied with the theme, the content, the mastery of the subject by the teachers and the course organization. In addition, they considered that the course included daily experiences and contributed to work in their areas, showing that there are benefits from telehealth. Thus, the present study identified the profile of the offshore health professional in Brazil, the training needs and showed that is possible to mitigate the dichotomy that is the lack of specific courses for the formation of the offshore health professional and the urgency of the training of this professional.