Expanding telemedicine to reduce the burden on the healthcare systems and poverty in Africa for a post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic reformation

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

“…No guidelines that guarantee the patients data security, privacy, and confidentiality [ 46 ] Commentary Africa Mental health (counselling, consultation) No guidance on the use of telemedicine for the delivery of mental healthcare, there is no standard of service delivery for telemedicine platforms in mental health care, and a lack of clarity regarding liability. [ 47 ] Concordance study Kenya Remote diagnosis of diseases High logistical and economical barriers to accessing health care [ 48 ] Review Africa Teledermatology Absence of strategic government policies, incompatibility of skills and digital knowledge [ 49 ] Review Africa Virtual doctor consultations Resistance to telemedicine, infrastructural barriers, and the lack of policy and budgetary support as main deterrents to the current implementation of Telemedicine [ 50 ] Commentary Africa Virtual COVID-19 vaccines monitoring Lack of political commitment, poor infrastructure, and inadequate resources, it has promising potentials to facilitate prompt access to the COVID-19 vaccine, routine follow-up post-vaccination, and surveillance in Africa [ 20 ] Review Africa Universal virtual healthcare The absence of policy and political will, inadequate funding, cost of sustenance of telehealth services, patient and healthcare personnel bias on telehealth, willingness to pay and lack of political will. [ 51 ] Correspondence Africa Telerheumatology Intermittent internet connection, digital divide and shortage of computing devices.…”

“…Table 1 shows that several countries in Africa have been utilizing telemedicine to provide virtual care while reducing secondary transmission and minimizing in-person care. Several reviews conducted by different authors including [ 20 , 28 , 32 , 40 , 48 , 49 ] reflect that telemedicine can substantially improve the quality of healthcare even under COVID-19 restrictions and measures. This study reveals that telemedicine can be used for various purposes such as telemonitoring, teleconsultation, tele-diagnosing, tele-screening and establishing real-time communication between healthcare professionals and COVID-19 patients in quarantine facilities, self-isolation centers and at home, as shown in Fig.…”

Telemedicine Ready or Not? a cross-sectional assessment of telemedicine maturity of federally funded tertiary health institutions in Nigeria

“…In line with the general principles of quality improvement, it is recommended that facilities roll out services in phases, recognizing areas of critical or urgent need, where the impact would be most felt. 8, 9 This would also help to build confidence of both providers and users in telemedicine and increase buy-in to the concept of e-health, allowing for a period of transition in deploying and up-scaling the technology and user capabilities required for telemedicine service provision. 8, 10…”

“…Although Nigeria is considered to have increased its telecommunications coverage in the last several years, 11 other related infrastructure such as challenges of interruptions in power supply, limited internet bandwidth and data costs are cogent barriers to implementation of telemedicine on a larger scale, including migration to real-time synchronous access rather than store-and –forward asynchronous interfaces. 9, 10, 12, 13 This challenge is similar across less developed countries and impacts providers and users, as active mobile broadband subscriptions, proportion of individuals using the internet, and mobile cellular telephone subscriptions are approximately 33%, 19% and 75% (compared to corresponding rates of 122%, 87% and 129% respectively in high income countries). 14 According to the 2020 report of the International Telecommunications Unit (ITU), about a quarter of less developed countries lack access to a mobile-broadband network (more so in the rural than urban settings), coming short of the sustainable development goal (SDG) (9.c) to significantly increase access to ICT and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020.…”

Environmental conditions, mobile digital culture, mobile usability, knowledge of app in COVID-19 risk mitigation: A structural equation model analysis

“…The concepts of health consultation and an integrated automated system of reaching out to distance communities is innovative and became pronounced during the COVID-19 outbreak ( Nicolini, 2021 ). Health technologies have provided support in improving patients' health outcomes ( Akintunde et al, 2021 ). For instance, mHealth is evidential Web-based technology that has improved patients' asthmatic collaborative self-management (CSM) ) ( Sacco et al, 2020 ).…”