For the fourth consecutive time, IT in Porto was present in the Caravana do Coração initiative, a yearly event that is organized by the Foundation Círculo do Coração, created by members of the biggest hospital in the Northeast region of Brazil, the Real Hospital Português.

Participating for the second consecutive time in Caravana do Coração, the IT researcher Pedro Gomes revealed that “This year alone, we served 1908 patients and made 10795 clinical procedures”. The 2016 edition gathered around 60 healthcare professionals that campaigned during 13 days through the state of Paraíba to screen cardiac diseases in children.

In a 10 year collaboration, the group from IT in Porto has been developing interactive auscultation screening tools to help the professionals working to ensure children’s health. According to the IT researcher, “This year we expanded their telemedicine capabilities to include digital auscultation for potentially all of Paraíba’s 40k births per year. Our job was to install 3 fixed and 3 mobile DigiScope stations and to train all the potential users throughout the state. Paraíba is now officially Digiscope ready!”

The DigiScope is a technology developed by IT in Porto that systematically records and transmits heart sounds, enabling the automatic detection of heart murmurs and pulmonary hypertension.

With 44 trained professionals, the DigiScope is currently ready to be used in 12 cities in Paraíba, the third most densely populated state of the Brazilian Northeast.