Ricardo de Albuquerque is a doctor and Tiago Ferreira is a computer engineer. They jointly developed Logbook by Medfolio, a platform that aims to make the Medical Internship in the Specialty more dynamic and less punishing, in the key moments of this stage, towards the title of specialist.
Innovative project promises to help Portuguese doctors during their specialty internship
According to the doctors, this platform aims to “revolutionise the way in-house doctors interact with their curriculum during Medical Internship”. To this end, it offers them the ability to manage their journey in three major areas of activity: clinical, training and scientific.
“The idea for the project came up during internships in a hospital and health centre environment, when the in-house colleagues, from the various specialties, were able to state that the Medical Internship is laborious and that time is spent in non-clinical tasks”, explains Ricardo de Albuquerque. An example, he says, “is the collection and processing of data with the consequent realisation of internship reports, three or four times a year, and it is clear that free time is less and less, largely due to tasks that go beyond the clinical dimension”. In this domain, the platform is designed to meet the needs of general practitioners in general and family medicine who are covered by the new Specific Training program of 2019, while in the fields of scientific and training activities it will be available to all in-house doctors.
This doctor, who graduated from the University of Algarve, says “the management of human resources is a dimension that has been little explored in the area of Health and that is now gaining more prominence”. Now, he stresses, “when we have motivated in-house doctors who are dedicated to clinical practice, but who are overwhelmed with extra work over and above their normal hours, we can only expect that soon they will feel unmotivated”.
In this context Medfolio arises, working daily to offer solutions to in-house doctors, which allow them to manage their internship more dynamically and effectively. This platform is the first great tool in this direction, when creating a concept of a Medfolio "community", which makes it possible to exchange views with in-house doctors in order to continually improve all of the solutions they are developing.
The design for Logbook by Medfolio appeared in 2016 and in 2018 it moved into the production stage when Ricardo and Tiago won the programme for the identification and enhancement of innovative business projects, StartUP @ CRIA, promoted by the University of Algarve, through CRIA, Entrepreneurship and Transfer Division of Technology.
Logbook by Medfolio will be available from 4 January 2021, at http://www.medfolio.pt.
