With the aim of “decongesting” the health centres in its region and providing professional guidance to the community, the University of Concepción, in Chile, through its Faculty of Medicine and its Telemedicine Unit, launched the website https://coronavirus.udec.cl

The portal offers a free of charge "Covid-19 risk assessment" form, in which the user is asked if he or she has had contact with a person with probable or confirmed Covid-19, if has symptoms and if belongs to any of the risk groups (chronic diseases, the elderly, cancer or respiratory diseases).

Depending on the information provided, the website will make a series of recommendations. If the patient registers suspicious contact, manifests symptoms and is part of any risk group, the platform will schedule a teleconsultation with a medical professional, through PLAZA, the video conference platform of the advanced Chilean network, REUNA.

This initiative has the support of the Regional Government of the Biobío region, the regional ministerial secretariats of Health and Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, the Faculty of Medicine and the Catholic universities of Santísima Concepción, San Sebastián and Andrés Bello.

For the technological development of this portal, the Telemedicine Unit of UdeC uses the REUNA virtual server platform, “+ Spacio”, where the site is hosted and the data provided by users is processed.

As of May 26, approximately 1.5 million accesses were registered on the platform, 75% of which came from users in Chile. Of this total, 701 teleconsultations were carried out, of which 197 were sent to quarantine.