ESTEVE and the Spanish Society of Hypertension – Spanish League to Fight Hypertension (SEH-LELHA) have created an iCommunity of High Blood Pressure (HBP) and Cardiovascular Risk (CVR) Units. This online environment (http://www.unidadeshtaenconexion.com/) brings together all HBP-CVR Units of Spanish hospitals in one same public directory where the services of these Units can be readily and easily accessed, consulted and shared.

The creation of the iCommunity of HBP-CVR Units meets a need to exchange contents and share problems, ideas, resources and initiatives likely to contribute to improve the daily tasks of healthcare providers. This online resource provides the physician with direct contact with his/her colleagues, all from one place, and favors teamwork through contact data, blogs, news, discussion boards, links, training material, image atlas, etc.

As explained by Dr. José Antonio García-Donaire, a Nephrology specialist from the High Blood Pressure Unit of the San Carlos Clinical Hospital of Madrid and one of the coordinators of the iCommunity together with Dr. Miguel Ángel Prieto, a Family Doctor at the Vallobín-La Florida Health Center of Oviedo, the purpose is to "disseminate the services and novelties available from all HBP-CVR Units throughout Spain so that professionals can be in contact with each other and exchange ideas and information". "The information provided is meant to support ―not replace― the relationships between the users/visitors of this website and healthcare providers", Dr. García-Donaire adds.

The directory includes information about the geographical location of the HBP and CVR Units with data, images, etc. accessed by means of different search criteria, does so in an agile, interactive, easily understandable way, and includes cartographic representations through Google Maps. The iCommunity is devised as a constantly updated environment in line with user tendencies and healthcare provider needs. According to Dr. García-Donaire, "we want to be a constantly updated reference for consultation by all HBP Units operating at a given time within each territorial environment".



A 2.0 virtual space with multiple possibilities

The iCommunity contents and services offered to HBP-CVR Units "range from information selected by users themselves to communication tools used with other professionals who share common interests, work and support tools, and the option to share information with other professionals and participate in discussion groups, all in the scope of a private, restricted access environment for each member", Dr. García-Donaire explains.

For instance, one of its resources allows searching for information in the CV environment and incorporating external web pages so that any iCommunity user can add new links. It also offers an online library where information about articles, publications or specialized texts can be searched. Once consulted, the information can be uploaded, duly labeled and indexed, in order to spare that search to the rest of professionals from the same center or from any other center.

The iCommunity in HBP-CVR Units also integrates an online filming archive, training material available for consultation by all members, news of interest, a blog for each participating hospital or user, a calendar of events, and a section to upload videoconferences ―accessible to any hospital― where file, image and video information can be exchanged.


The SEH-LELHA Medical Apps Guide, another collaboration with ESTEVE

The creation of the iCommunity of HBP-CVR Units is added to the "SEH-LELHA Medical Apps Guide", developed by ESTEVE in collaboration with the scientific society ―and entirely free of charge. According to Dr. Miguel Ángel Prieto, "the objective is scientific updating and the possibility of online consultations to facilitate diagnosis, prognosis and patient treatment".

This Guide includes a wide selection of apps (almost one hundred), with special emphasis placed on clinically useful resources and on training apps selected with quality and scientific rigor criteria. According to Dr. Prieto, "as compared to the thousands of healthcare apps available, this Guide offers a quality-proven selection that meets most of the needs and issues faced by the clinician in his/her everyday practice".

The "SEH-LELHA Medical Apps Guide" is the result of a sophisticated, strict selection process where quality, simplicity and ease-of-use criteria have been prioritized, as have the degree of scientific evidence of the resources used and the identification of responsible authors or scientific societies. As Dr. Prieto points out, "healthcare providers and scientific societies alike must see that true information selected according to scientific rigor and quality criteria is provided in the different apps".

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