The feasibility of the ‘treat and teach’ telemedicine package: the Somali pilot

Abstract

Telemedicine has proven to help fill the gap of deficiency of healthcare services whether due to deficient numbers of specialists or unavailability of specialized care in under privileged areas. To study the feasibility of implementing the "Treat and Teach' initiative package at the East Africa University (EAU), somalia. An observational study that implemented its "Treat and Teach" package at the East Africa University, bosaso, somalia recruiting the Somali healthcare team. Acceptance of stakeholders, knowledge and confidence of physicians, percentage of undiagnosed cases and causes were assessed pre-and post-intervention. Needs assessment revealed several deficits as specialized cardiological, neurological and critical care. The 'Treat and Teach' package was well accepted by stakeholders. 1500 patients presented to the new cardiology and neurology outpatient clinics. About two thirds of neurology and cardiology cases were diagnosed and treated by the trained healthcare team. The 'Treat and Teach' package is feasible in underprivileged areas (as somalia) as it tailors a program according to needs assessment and targets sustainability through capacity building and continuous support in all sectors not merely the medical domain.

Technological development in telemedicine: bibliometric analysis, research gaps, and literature trends

“…The "telemedicine service operation" (13 articles) covers articles that mainly deal with experiments on the use of telemedicine for monitoring patients and/or treating diseases (Albahri et al, 2018;Cancela;Fico;Arredondo Waldmeyer, 2015;Castaneda;Ellimoottil, 2020;Cross, 2020;Hoaas et al, 2016;Huang et al, 2020;Joshi;Woll, 2015;Koehler et al, 2020;Martin et al, 2012;Wahba et al, 2020;), in addition to containing literature reviews that address the same theme.…”

“…There was a significant increase in interest among researchers about technological development in telemedicine in 2020 (Figure 3), mainly due to the covid-19 pandemic, which reinforced the need for teleservice (Eisenstein et al, 2020;Grimes et al 2020;Monaghesh;Hajizadeh, 2020), for the management of telemedicine services (Allaert et al, 2020;Harst et al, 2019;Kho, Gillespie;Martin-Khan, 2020;Choi;Han, 2020;Ncube;, and the ways of operating them (Castaneda;Ellimoottil, 2020;Cross, 2020;Huang et al, 2020;Koehler et al, 2020;Wahba et al, 2020).…”

“…Figure 6 presents, in word cloud format, all 150 keywords of the articles, whose highlights are still the terms technology, telemedicine, e-Health, m-Health, telehealth, telecare, and Internet of Things; notwithstanding, there is also an emphasis on the terms innovation, ICT, robotics, 5G, cloud computing, policy, ethics, education, covid-19, business model, rural health, Africa, developing countries, female, sustainability, and aged, which characterize what is being researched when dealing with technological innovation in telemedicine.We emphasize that the terms rural health, developing countries, and Africa, together, indicate the use of telemedicine as a means of overcoming the lack of doctors in poor or remote areas, as in the studies byCurrie, Philip and Roberts (2015),Khan et al (2015),Pagalday-Olivares et al (2017),Lee et al (2018),Walters, Scott and Mars (2018), Gebre-Mariam and Bygstad (2019),Kiberu, Scott and Mars (2019),Nikolaidis, Efthymiadis and Angelidis (2019) andWahba et al (2020).…”