Ribera wins the Digital Health award for Best Telemedicine project with its digital nutrition programme in dialysis

The Ribera healthcare group has won the award for Best Telemedicine Project with its digital nutrition programme for dialysis patients, developed in collaboration with Nootric, at the 7th edition of the Digital Health Awards held yesterday at the headquarters of the Cofares Foundation in Madrid. It was also a finalist with its campaign for the prevention of cardiovascular problems, Ritmos de Vida and its arrhythmic metronome in the category of the award for Technological Originality in Health. Ribera’s Digital Transformation Officer, Tania Menéndez, and the group’s Director of Communication, Marketing and CSR, Angélica Alarcón, were in charge of collecting the prize and the diploma for each project, in a public ceremony attended by the Regional Minister of Health of the Community of Madrid, Enrique Ruíz Escudero.

The Digital Health awards aim to recognise initiatives developed in the area of health, both in the public and private sectors, that contribute to improving the health, wellbeing and quality of life of people through new information and communication technologies, also known as eHealth, as stated in its rules. The Ribera Group is “very proud and satisfied” with both awards as “they are prizes for important, high-quality projects promoted by leading institutions and companies”.

The Ribera Group’s digital nutrition service for dialysis patients at the Vinalopó University Hospital (Elche) and its Nefrosol dialysis centre (Alicante), developed in collaboration with Nootric, offers a personalised diet plan, coordinated by nutritionists and the nephrology medical team, supported by a mobile application. In this first phase, focused on overweight or obese dialysis patients who are candidates for kidney transplantation, their quality of life was improved and their body weight was significantly reduced (6.4kg on average per patient), in addition to improving body composition and increasing strength gain. The programme, which has been run by a great team of professionals led by Dr Eva Cotilla de la Rosa, head of the Nephrology Service at the Vinalopó University Hospital, and Dr Omar David Miranda, medical director of Nefrosol, has been very well received, as it allows real-time monitoring of the nutritional habits of each person undergoing treatment, without the need to visit a doctor’s surgery. It also facilitates permanent interaction because it has an alert system that facilitates proactive intervention by the medical team, if necessary, and anticipation of possible worsening of the process.

For its part, Ritmos de Vida is the health group’s original campaign in which health and music come together to raise awareness of cardiovascular diseases and associated risk factors, with a singular and unique element: the first ever arrhythmic metronome.  Ribera has promoted the construction of a singular metronome, which swings to the “rhythm” of a sick heart, that of Adrián, a patient with arrhythmia, and which has become the axis of all the initiatives linked to this awareness-raising and health education action: a travelling exhibition of the unique metronome, which has already visited the university hospitals of Torrejón and Vinalopó, and will soon visit the rest of the group’s hospitals; musical compositions recorded to the rhythm of this metronome and concerts in healthcare centres; awareness-raising days with patients and healthy advice on the website created specifically for this purpose and its social networks, among others. Ribera has collaborated with Maart Agency, responsible for the creative idea, and with Estudio Espadaysantacruz, manufacturer of the customised arrhythmic metronome.