Introduction

The Telemedicine University Network (RUTE) in Brazil is an initiative that promotes collaboration between university hospitals, teaching hospitals, health professionals, and students using information and communication technology infrastructure to support special interest groups (SIGs) in health care. Health professionals in RUTE-member institutions plan a program of video conferences and/or web conferences to discuss specific themes. This article presents the results of an analysis of the collaboration between the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) of the Telemedicine University Network (RUTE) considering the SIGs production in communication, cooperation and coordination (3C).

Methods

A survey was applied to SIG coordinators between April and May 2016. The classification of SIGs into homogeneous groups considered the activities developed in the network between 2007 and the time of the survey application. The study is retrospectively based on historical data from units, institutions and SIGs. The coordinators of 71 RUTE SIGs were invited to respond. Of those, forty-five active SIGs responded to the evaluation survey in its entirety and were considered in the analyses.

Results

Almost one third of the respondent coordinators (35%) stated that their SIG works in the education axis, 21% work in the care and research, development and innovation axes, while 12% work in management and 11% in evaluation. The SIGs were grouped into three homogeneous categories: emergent collaboration, collaborative development, and full collaboration, and it was identified that 71% of the 45 SIGs (11 in the emerging and 20 developing groups) use email as the main extra-session communication tool. Four SIGs from the full collaboration group reported: use of instant messaging service (1 SIG), own website (1 SIG) and social networks (2 SIGs).

Conclusion

The results of this study suggests may not accurately gauge the actual production and collaboration that SIGs develop and this analysis can be considered as a starting point or as a reference for the RUTE community. However, the results suggest significant growth in collaboration between RUTE-member SIGs, indicating a positive trend for the RUTE regarding the interest, participation and dissemination of actions in telemedicine and telehealth in the country.

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