The topic of delivering healthcare information over long distances via telecommunication tools, ensuring that specialised healthcare is enjoyed by all – telemedicine – was the primary focus on the opening day of the third Africa Health Exhibition and Congress taking place at the Gallagher Convention Centre.
In an opening paper delivered by Caron Jack from the Department of Telehealth, School of Nursing and Public Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, it was revealed that the South African government is at an “advanced stage” of delivering telemedicine to rural areas.
According to Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, effective health monitoring of healthcare service delivery and overall performance of health systems requires functional health information systems capable of producing realtime information for decision-makers. Globally, ICT has emerged as a critical enabling mechanism to achieve this.
“Africa has a huge challenge in remote areas where access to expert healthcare advice is limited leaving patients with inadequate and unsatisfactory medical results,” says Jack. “This was the main reason why telemedicine was initially introduced and it has now being adopted by the government as another method of treating patients.”
Telemedicine is the ability to offer patients from rural and remote areas specialised advice in realtime.
“A patient in Makapanstad, a village north of Pretoria, can receive specialised medical advice from a dermatologist based in Sandton in realtime, thanks to on-going improvements to telemedicine,” says Jack. “Plans are in place to ensure that the patient from Makapanstad can book a video conference session with their primary healthcare provider (community doctor or clinic) and the specialist based in Sandton.”
Jack says that the government is approaching advance stages in ensuring that this becomes part of normal healthcare practice although, just like any initiative or improvement to something, there are always issues that need to be ironed out first.
“One of the main concerns that government and bodies such has the Health Professions Council of South Africa are facing, is the formulating of guidelines that can combat the issue of doctor patient confidentiality,” Jack explains. “In most cases, during the sessions, a technical person will be present ensuring that the telecommunication tools work properly without any interruptions meaning that their presence exposes the confidentiality between doctor and patient.”
In its e-Health Strategy, the Department of Health seek to address the vast disparities that healthcare in South Africa is facing – the gap between the specialised treatments that patients living in urban areas receive compared to those in rural areas is huge.
“This robust approach will address the under-resourced populations giving them a chance to access specialised service and advice in realtime,” says Jack.