Challenges and Opportunities of Telemedicine Implementation in Africa

摘要

The prospect for Telemedicine in Africa is enormous and will be quite phenomena; from tele-echocardiography and tele-radiology, to home monitoring, e-prescription, medication alert systems and teleconsultation. The encumbrance of disease is great and there is an extreme shortage of health professionals. Telemedicine can provide access to scarce specialist care, ameliorate the quality of care in rural areas and reduce the desideratum for rural patients to peregrinate to seek medical attention. International cross border accommodation can alleviate the shortage of medicos. However, telemedicine uptake in general, has been poor in Africa. Licit and ethical issues have been major stumbling blocks. The literature was reviewed in the attempt to study and describe the obstacles to telemedicine in Africa. There are few sustained telemedicine accommodations in Africa which could be largely due to the growth in mobile broad services and mobile phones penetration.