Natasha Bolognesi
CAPE TOWN, Nov 27 2006 (IPS) – The 11th conference of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth (ISfTeH) kicked off Monday at the International Convention Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, where delegates from around the globe gathered to discuss the benefits and challenges that eHealth (electronic health) offers to both the developed and developing world.
It is the first time the annual ISfTeH gathering has been held in Africa, and in the words of the society s president, Michael Nerlich, The event should allow for increasing recognition of telemedicine and eHealth in developing countries, particularly those in Africa.
Telemedicine is the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as mobile phone text messages, e-mail and video conferencing to give rural primary health care workers access to specialists in urban academic hospitals.
Telemedicine may prove more cost-effective than traditional methods of health care. Video conferencing in France, for example, is saving the national health care system substantial amounts of money in transportation costs through a programme called ALTERMED, which operates with the participation of more than 20 societies and associations.
André Petitet of TAMTélésanté a telemedicine company based in Aix en Provence in southern France says that ALTERMED offers doctors the option of administering treatment locally instead of having unnecessary travel costs incurred through evacuating patients to better equipped, but distant, medical institutions. This is done through the exchange of medical advice via video conferencing, which lets data travel rather than patients and health professionals, notes Petitet.
Such cost-effectiveness means that telemedicine holds great promise for developing nations where poor funding has undermined health care in a variety of ways. Lack of money translates into an insufficient number of medics in remote areas, for instance and also poor roads, meaning that patients may struggle to reach even those health workers who are available.
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With eHealth, notes Moretlo Molefi director of the Telemedicine Lead Programme at the South African Medical Research Council (MRC) inequalities in health care can be addressed,: The beneficiaries will be the poorest of the poor because you are now giving quality health care to those who could not (previously) access it. (The Cape Town-based MRC is largely funded by government.)
However, there is much to be done before these inequalities can be ironed out.
Emil Asamoah-Odei, a medical officer for the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa who is based in Zimbabwe, emphasises the need to expand eHealth awareness and activity on the continent by bridging the digital divide that has left Africa lagging behind the developed world in the use of ICTs. Work also has to be done to increase limited awareness of the potential of eHealth, he notes.
For its part, the MRC the leading research centre for telemedicine in South Africa is running several pilot studies to explore ways of harnessing the potential benefits of eHealth.
One of these projects started in February 2004 at the public primary health care clinic in Grabouw, a rural town about 100 kilometres outside the coastal city of Cape Town.
Like the other 4,900 primary health care clinics in South Africa, the Grabouw facility is run only by nurses. But thanks to a telemedicine link to the Ukwanda Centre for Rural Health at Tygerberg Academic Hospital in Cape Town, these nurses can now consult specialists if the need arises.
Since the implementation of the telemedicine research project, says the MRCs Jill Fortuin, the clinic has benefited from improved time management, cost effectiveness, a reduction in staff stress levels and an improvement in healthcare quality.
The ISfTeH conference ends Wednesday.
