- The Rheumatology Department is offering this course to update knowledge on the most prevalent rheumatic diseases
- The aim is the continuous improvement of the management of patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases through shared experience
Alicante (07.11.24). The Rheumatology Department of the Doctor Balmis University General Hospital and the Alicante Institute for Health and Biomedical Research (ISABIAL) have held the ‘1st Training Conference on Rheumatology for Primary Care in the Province of Alicante’, aimed at contributing to the continuous training of professionals working in health centres.
This is the first year that this Rheumatology course has been organised, and it has been well received, with around 200 registered participants—both medical and nursing staff from health centres across the province—who gathered in the auditorium of the Alicante hospital. The conference was inspired by the training model implemented in recent years at the General Hospital of Valencia.
Rheumatic and musculoskeletal conditions are the leading cause of consultation in Primary Care. For this reason, “it is essential to provide professionals with tools that allow them to manage these problems more efficiently and effectively, which ultimately benefits patients, Primary Care professionals themselves, as well as rheumatologists,” stressed the Head of the Rheumatology Department, Dr Paloma Vela.
The objectives of the conference are, on the one hand, to provide information on the latest scientific evidence regarding the most prevalent rheumatic diseases, including diagnosis, management criteria, therapy, follow‑up, referral criteria, and more. In other words, to deepen the knowledge that helps improve the management of conditions that Primary Care professionals are trained to address and can resolve at this level of care. On the other hand, the aim is to identify situations that require rapid referral to a Rheumatology specialist to ensure early patient care.
During the conference, “we addressed general and highly practical aspects of the main conditions commonly seen in Primary Care consultations, and we provided key ideas that may be useful for professionals in their daily practice. Likewise, this interaction and mutual understanding between professionals from both levels of care is essential to improving the joint management of patients”, Dr Vela emphasised.
Course contents
Four speaker panels were organised, bringing together professionals from different health departments across the province of Alicante and focusing on four groups of rheumatic diseases. The first panel addressed inflammatory rheumatic diseases and systemic autoimmune disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis. The second panel covered conditions such as gout—which has a high prevalence in the population and around which many myths and misconceptions persist—and low back pain, one of the leading reasons for consultation in Primary Care.
Osteoporosis was the focus of the third panel, which presented both the rheumatologist’s perspective and that of specialised nursing—an approach that is also key to ensuring optimal patient management. The final panel addressed mechanical and muscular disorders, including osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia, which are among the most common conditions in the general population.
The programme included a session dedicated to the medications used in Rheumatology, since, as Dr Vela explains, “this is a topic that generates many queries in health centres, and it is very important for professionals to be familiar with it in order to address everyday clinical issues”.
The organisers aim to continue this course in the future, once again counting on the support provided by the pharmaceutical industry for the first edition, and to establish it as an annual meeting between Rheumatology and Primary Care at the provincial level, with the goal of continuing to improve and learn from shared experience.
The event was supported at a premium level by GSK, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Grünenthal, Alfasigma, Sandoz, Bristol Myers Squibb, Lilly, AbbVie and Otsuka. It also featured the participation of Theramex, CSL Vifor, Asacpharma, Pfizer, Novartis, Italfarmaco, Sanofi, Alter Médica, Roche and Sobi, as well as GP Pharm, Laboratorios Viñas, UCB, Faes Farma, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Rubió, Biogen, Procare Health, Mibe Pharma España and Gebro Pharma.
