A sustainable and affordable support system for rural healthcare delivery

Barjis, Joseph; Kolfschoten, Gwendolyn L.; Maritz, Johan

doi:10.1016/j.dss.2013.06.005

Cited by 58 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…For instance, in the Republic of South Africa, a recent project has implemented a remote and sustainable support system for rural healthcare delivery [7]. More traditionally, primary healthcare in South Africa is home-based, established naturally within rural communities in order to provide basic nursing care by formal or informal caregivers to persons in their own homes.…”

Section: Telemedicine and Mobile Health In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Could telemedicine enhance traditional medicine practices?

Kamsu-Foguem

Foguem

2014

European Research in Telemedicine / La Recherche Européenne en

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International audienceIn developing countries, telemedicine and mobile health tools promise to enhance access to high-quality healthcare, to support communication of medical information and to assist pharmacovigilance processes. In this article, we provide some arguments on the potential of telemedicine and mobile health (mHealth) applications to improve the delivery of health care in rural African regions. Specifically, the development of mobile telemedicine could help to lay the foundations of a healthcare approach integrating modern medical knowledge with ancient medical practices on the African continent. Access to information and communication technology (ICT), technical devices or portable media in developing countries is increasingly widespread. This can foster a complementary approach to healthcare, namely in African home-based care (AHC), in which the practice of conventional medicine takes place in an environment where belief in traditional medicine is strong. In the AHC, there are community volunteers who provide primary care and link patients with qualified medical personnel working in the nearest clinics and hospitals. These volunteers have contextual knowledge that is at the frontier of modern and traditional medicine, strongly influencing their practical approach to healthcare. The article proposes an interesting holistic look at potential applications of telemedicine in this context and examines in particular therapeutic and preventive education of toxicological aspects of medicinal plants and communication about the potential side effects of these plants

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Section: Telemedicine and Mobile Health In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Could telemedicine enhance traditional medicine practices?

Kamsu-Foguem

Foguem

2014

European Research in Telemedicine / La Recherche Européenne en

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“…Population pressure is another factor that contributes to the low capacity of rural communities to cope with adverse effects of climate change. South Africa's rural population grew by 1.4 per cent in 2012 (Barjis et al, 2013). It is not surprising that in South Africa today, forest conservation areas and forest resources are under threat from population pressure and systems of land use in many rural communities (Turpie and Visser, 2013).…”

Section: Factors Influencing Vulnerability Of Forest-based Communitiementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite recent improvements in access to healthcare facilities in South Africa, imbalances in the coverage of health services persist (Tansera et al, 2006). Many rural communities still have poor access to healthcare facilities and rural hospitals and clinics are often poorly equipped and understaffed (Barjis et al, 2013;Madzwamuse, 2014). Most local communities do not have the medical facilities and infrastructure to handle the outbreak of disease.…”

Section: Factors Influencing Vulnerability Of Forest-based Communitiementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, 69 per cent of all South Africans that live in poverty are located in rural areas (Barjis et al, 2013), which are characterized by multiple stresses such as high unemployment and low economic development opportunities (VBR, 2012;Madzwamuse, 2014). Lack of or poor employment opportunities in rural areas often cause people to engage in seasonal income-generating activities, informal trade in agricultural and forest products and over-dependence on governmental support, for example, social grants (Barjis et al, 2013;Naidoo et al, 2013). These often lead to perpetuation of poverty in the rural areas, thereby weakening people's capacity to respond to climate and socioeconomic challenges (Dube and Phiri, 2013;Turpie and Visser, 2013).…”

Section: Factors Influencing Vulnerability Of Forest-based Communitiementioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing vulnerability of rural communities to climate change

Ofoegbu

Chirwa

Francis

et al. 2017

IJCCSM

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Purpose -The paper aims to enhance the understanding of the impacts of climate change on rural communities in Africa, including people's livelihoods, their adaptive capacity, coping practice and ability to engage in sustainable forest use and management of climate change adaptation.Design/methodology/approach -The paper opted for a desktop review approach, using the forestbased rural communities of South Africa as a case study.Findings -This review shows that climate variability and change are affecting rural people and their livelihoods negatively. Forest-based livelihoods are particularly vulnerable. Nevertheless, the people have developed coping mechanisms to cushion the effects of climate variability and change. However, the effectiveness and efficiency of these strategies are greatly constrained by factors that are related mostly to their socioeconomic characteristics (for example, skill level, educational status and health) and the functionalities of infrastructures and services in their communities.Research limitations/implications -Given that the study focused on forest-based rural communities and livelihoods, the results may be limited in generalizability. This may have particular implications for other categories of rural communities and livelihoods in Africa and developing countries in other continents.Practical implications -The study showed that opportunities for planning and implementing effective climate change adaptation at rural community level in South Africa are reliant on effective strategies to overcome the constraints identified by the study. The authors thus recommend that climate change adaptation initiatives in rural communities of Africa should focus on improving people's socioeconomic conditions and the overall sustainable development of the community.Originality/value -This paper fulfils an identified need to study how climate change affects rural forestbased communities and livelihoods.

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“…On the other hand, fast and accurate diagnosis due to continuous monitoring through information communication technology (ICT) devices leads to prevent the death of diabetic patients [23]. Telemedicine as a main tool to remote health care delivery and home care has advantages such as real-time access to health information [3,24], reducing medical errors [25], and increasing coordination and cooperation among health care teams [1], reducing travel of patients and their families in remote area [26], and useful education tool for patients, their families, and health care providers [27]. Therefore, this technology has a very important role in decreasing costs and taking appropriate management actions especially in diabetes management and other chronic disease [28,29].…”

Section: Chronic Disease Management: Necessity Of Mhealth Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobile Health Monitoring

Mohammadzadeh¹,

Safdari²

2016

Mobile Health Technologies - Theories and Applications

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Chronic diseases impose heavy burden and costs on the health industry in many countries. Suitable health procedures, management, and prevention of disease by continuous monitoring through modern technologies can lead to a decrease in health costs and improve people empowerment. Applying remote medical diagnosis and monitoring system based on mobile health systems can help significantly reduce health care costs and correct performance management particularly in chronic disease management. In this chapter, mHealth opportunities in patient monitoring with the introduction of various systems specifically in chronic disease are expressed. Also mHealth challenges in patient monitoring in general and specific aspects are identified. Some of the general challenges include threats to confidentiality and privacy, and lack of information communication technology (ICT), and mobile infrastructure. In specific aspect, some difficulties include lack of system interoperability with electronic health records and other IT tools, decrease in face-to-face communication between doctor and patient, ill-functioning of system that leads to medical errors and negative effects on care outcomes, patients, and personnel, and factors related to the telecommunication industry include reliability and sudden interruptions of telecommunication networks.

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A sustainable and affordable support system for rural healthcare delivery

Cited by 58 publications

References 10 publications

Could telemedicine enhance traditional medicine practices?

Could telemedicine enhance traditional medicine practices?

Assessing vulnerability of rural communities to climate change

Mobile Health Monitoring

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