The development of telehealth as a strategy to improve health care services in Zambia

Abstract

Background: Providing health information and knowledge to health practitioners in rural parts of Africa is a major problem, impacting on the delivery of health care and professional development. In Zambia, as in other African countries, medical expertise, equipment and information resources are concentrated in the major cities with an adverse effect on patients living in rural areas. Objectives: We seek to outline the benefits of telehealth initiatives in ameliorating the problems caused by the inequitable distribution of expertise, equipment and knowledge resources in a low-income country. The principles agreed to take advantage of technology and the progress towards implementation are described. Methods: This is a descriptive study based on the literature, news reports, and the personal experience of the first author on the Zambian National Telehealth Steering Committee. Results and Conclusions: The introduction of telehealth to solve some of the problems of health delivery in Zambia is a gigantic enterprise, and liable to setbacks. But the librarians at the University of Zambia Medical Library, with a history of making knowledge available and their involvement in the telehealth strategy, are seeking opportunities to provide better outreach services to hospitals and health facilities throughout the country.

Information needs of public health practitioners: a review of the literature

“…Needs for evidence‐based information and effectively summarised information were identified by Forsetlund and LaPelle and the ScHARR produced evidence bulletin outlined by Wilkinson may help to meet this need. A need to overcome barriers to information access caused by the lack of IT provision was suggested by many of the information needs studies listed in Table – telehealth is suggested and utilised as a possible mechanism of overcoming this barrier in developing countries by Chanda and Shaw . Other solutions cannot be so easily matched to the needs expressed in Table , but are clearly powerfully effective tools for public health practitioners: Wipfli demonstrates the success of the use of an online communication and information network, GLOBALink, in facilitating the adoption of tobacco control measures internationally …”

Using Partial Least Squares (PLS) in Predicting Behavioral Intention for Telehealth Use among Filipino Elderly

“…Moreover, the increasing healthcare cost associated with aging creates diverse market opportunities for Telehealth (DelliFraine, & Dansky, 2008). While Telehealth has attracted considerable attention from healthcare providers in developed counties (Milligan et al, 2011;Brownsell, 2009), the ''least developed countries'' could perhaps benefit most from such technologies (Chanda & Shaw, 2010). Much of the world's elderly population (70%) resides in developing countries, and continues to rise at a rapid pace (WHO, 2002).…”

Infrastructural Barriers to e-Health Implementation in Developing Countries:

“…Many developed nations have invested huge amounts of money on these systems and the developing states are also making efforts to adopt these technologies. However, there are several difficulties to be addressed before taking full advantage of these technologies (Chanda & Shaw, 2010). It is noteworthy that most of the studies about eHealth and its successful implementation have been undertaken in both advanced (Little et al, 2007;Eysenbach et al, 2007;Reichertz, 2006) and developing ones (Asangansi et al, 2008;Oak, 2007;Kimaro& Nhampossa, 2007;Omona & Ikoja-Odongo, 2006).…”