Telemedicine implementation and benefits for quality and patient safety in Pakistan

Abstract

Telemedicine is becoming an important aspect in developing countries to provide better health facilities. Rural areas in developing countries suffer due to lack of health facilities and face difficulties like time to reach health facilities at the faraway places, cost of reaching at a health care facility, and transportation needed to move around for the treatment/consulting purpose. Telemedicine could be used for safe and quality health by specialists at low cost in rural areas in Pakistan. Telemedicine services could be provided through video sharing, image sharing, mobile services or by e-mail. A research study was conducted to analyze the implementation and to explore the benefits of telemedicine in Pakistan. We distributed 150 questionnaires among teaching hospital doctors in city of Lahore, out of which we received 147 completed questionnaires. Three of the questionnaires were rejected due to incomplete information. The questionnaires were given to participants in the scheduled classes and collected at the end of class. Instructors were requested to allow students to complete questionnaires. The results showed 66.32% doctors of teaching hospital agreed to implement telemedicine for rural areas in Pakistan. 78.9% doctors agreed that telemedicine will save travelling time and money for availing expert opinion. However, 30.6% doctors agreed that Telemedicine will be beneficial for urban community – obtained the lowest score. The enhanced link between doctors and telemedicine can contribute to provide better health facilities in rural areas.

https://doi.org/10.34105/j.kmel.2015.07.024