Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022:3:100152.
doi: 10.1016/j.sintl.2021.100152. Epub 2021 Dec 7.

Are we there yet? Unbundling the potential adoption and integration of telemedicine to improve virtual healthcare services in African health systems

Elliot Mbunge  1 , Benhildah Muchemwa  1 , John Batani  2
Affiliations

Are we there yet? Unbundling the potential adoption and integration of telemedicine to improve virtual healthcare services in African health systems

Elliot Mbunge et al. Sens Int. 2022.

Abstract

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the attention has now shifted towards universal vaccination to gracefully lift strict COVID-19 restrictions previously imposed to contain the spread of the disease. Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing an exponential increase of infections and deaths coupled with vaccines shortages, personal protective equipment, weak health systems and COVID-19 emerging variants. Some developed countries integrated telemedicine to reduce the impacts of the shortage of healthcare professionals and potentially reduce the risk of exposure, ensuring easy delivery of quality health services while limiting regular physical contact and direct hospitalization. However, the adoption of telemedicine and telehealth is still nascent in many sub-Saharan Africa countries. Therefore, this study reflects on progress made towards the use of telemedicine, virtual health care services, challenges encountered, and proffers ways to address them. We conducted a systematic literature review to synthesise literature on telemedicine in sub-Saharan Africa. The study revealed that telemedicine provides unprecedented benefits such as improving efficiency, effective utilization of healthcare resources, forward triaging, prevention of medical personnel infection, aiding medical students' clinical observation and participation, and assurance of social support for patients. However, the absence of policy on virtual care and political will, cost of sustenance of virtual health care services, inadequate funding, technological and infrastructural barriers, patient and healthcare personnel bias on virtual care and cultural barriers are identified as limiting factors to the adoption of virtual health care in many African health systems. To alleviate some of these barriers, we recommend the development of robust policies and frameworks for virtual health care, the inclusion of virtual care in the medical school curriculum, supporting virtual care research and development, increasing health funding, removing monopolisation of telecommunication services, developing of virtual health solutions that address eccentricities of African health systems.

Keywords: Africa; COVID-19; Health digital technologies; Telehealth; Telemedicine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
PRISMA flow diagram.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Distribution of articles based on study type.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Telemedicine services.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Malik Y.S., Sircar S., Bhat S., Sharun K., Dhama K., Dadar M., et al. Emerging novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)—current scenario, evolutionary perspective based on genome analysis and recent developments. 2020. 40:68–76. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Rab S., Javaid M., Haleem A., Vaishya R. Face masks are new normal after COVID-19 pandemic. Diabet. Metab. Syndr. Clin. Res. Rev. 2020;14:1617–1619. doi: 10.1016/J.DSX.2020.08.021. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mbunge E., Millham R.C., Sibiya M.N., Fashoto S.G., Akinnuwesi B., Simelane S., et al. Framework for ethical and acceptable use of social distancing tools and smart devices during COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe. Sustain. Oper. Comput. 2021;2:190–199. doi: 10.1016/J.SUSOC.2021.07.003. - DOI
    1. Mbunge E., Simelane S., Fashoto S.G., Akinnuwesi B., Metfula A.S. Application of deep learning and machine learning models to detect COVID-19 face masks - a review. Sustain. Oper. Comput. 2021;2:235–245. doi: 10.1016/J.SUSOC.2021.08.001. - DOI
    1. Mbunge E. Effects of COVID-19 in South African health system and society: an explanatory study. Diabet. Metab. Syndr. Clin. Res. Rev. 2020;14:1809–1814. doi: 10.1016/J.DSX.2020.09.016. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources