Among the projects of the Modena Local Health Authority that have received recent regional funding in the field of Mental Health, the project of telemedicine in prison healthcarelaunched last December in the prison of Modena and in the prison of Castelfranco Emilia.
The project currently concerns psychiatric disorders: the prison doctor, through an IT platform, can activate the advice of the psychiatrist of the Mental Health Department who will be able to televise the prisoner, obviously supported by the prison doctor. A particularly innovative project that falls within the scope of prison health included in regional funding.
Joseph Caloro
“telemedicine offers a series of advantages that can contribute significantly to the well-being of prisoners and to the overall improvement of prison health care” underlines Dr. Giuseppa Caloro, Director of the South Area Adult Mental Health complex and coordinator of mental health interventions in prison. “First of all, it allows consultations and treatments reducing the need for costly and complex transfers of prisoners to external health facilities. Furthermore, it allows specialized medical advice from experts, even when distant from prisons, and allows complex or specialized cases to be dealt with effectively and promptly, offering prisoners adequate access to quality medical care without the need for physical travel”. .
Psychiatry is only the first of the areas in which the Modena Local Health Authority is experimenting with telemedicine in prison healthcare. “We are developing other areas in which to use telemedicine services such as televisitation, teleassistance in prisons – explains Federica Casoni Director of the Vignola health district and contact person for the telemedicine project for Ausl Modena – in the medium term we will be able to implement the project”.