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eHealth Equity: Current Perspectives
Get PDFHealth justice is something that every country in the world needs. However, the existence of health disparities among different social groups and geographical regions in various countries of the world is inevitable. These health inequalities are a major obstacle in achieving health justice. There are a number of factors affecting health equity such as socio-economic status, education level, age, religion, geographical position, racial and ethnical differences, gender minorities, environmental factors, accessibility level to healthcare services and resources, and also the quality of healthcare. Although eHealth has the potential of eliminating health inequalities leading to the establishment of health justice, it is essential that governments and health policy makers provide some measures to diminish major barriers facing the society members especially the elderly, poor, uneducated, and disabled people when implementing it. This can result in attaining the advantages of eHealth for establishing health equity
Survey Study: Reality Check of Internet and Telemedicine Use in Iraqi Hospitals
Get PDFThirteen years after the US invasion of Iraq, the healthcare system remains in shambles, due to inherited and emerging problems. A few solutions have been proposed to overcome these problems, and of all the proposed solutions, telemedicine is the one that can potentially overcome the problems of affordability and access. The Iraqi Telemedicine Centre undertook a study to investigate feasibility of applying telemedicine in Baghdad. The study explores hospitals’ Internet services in terms of type, use, and access. Methods: A survey-based study was conducted by field visits and direct interviews with administrative representatives of fourteen randomly selected hospitals in Baghdad, eight of them are governmental and six are nongovernmental for-profit hospitals. Results: 71% (10/14) of the hospitals have access to the Internet via fibre optic cable through a commercial small business package plan. Six of the ten with Internet offer Wi-Fi to their physicians and potentially their patients, and five of these hospitals are nongovernmental for-profit hospitals. Five of the 14 hospitals were using some aspect of telemedicine and six of the hospitals were interested in participating in projects utilising telemedicine. These results are probably generalisable to the rest of Iraq, as the healthcare system and Internet services are the same. In conclusion, despite of all the challenges, telemedicine is feasible in Iraq, especially if it was affordable and the technology can operate on low-bandwidth Internet.
Telemedicine Project in Remote and Rural Communities - Egypt
Get PDF While many forward strides had been made over recent years in the Egyptian health ecosystem, in terms of overall mortality rates, vaccination and immunisation efforts, and expansion and improvement of medical infrastructure, some challenges remained unresolved. One major challenge is the centralisation of specialised medical services in the country’s major cities, leaving more isolated and rural communities with less than adequate medical services. The Egypt ICT Trust Fund felt that offering remote telemedicine diagnostic services would be a major asset to such communities. A telemedicine project, using open source, cloud technologies to connect small clinics with major hospitals in the country was initiated. Future plans include expansion to multiple nodes covering many more governorates in the country, with connection to multiple hospitals covering all medical specialisations. While the project aimed at improving medical services to rural population in general, field assessment studies have shown that women benefitted from the project due to the fact that women in these areas usually face cultural and traditional barriers preventing them from travelling freely if unaccompanied by a male guardian, rendering it very difficult for them to receive medical services from distant cities. This paper describes the process of successful implementation of each telemedicine session, and highlights the possible policy implications for future expansion of a workable model.
Telehealth is a Viable Alternative for the Treatment and Assessment of Home Peritoneal Dialysis, Stroke and Chronic Care and as Such Should be Reimbursable by Medicare
Get PDFTelehealth has been shown as an effective method to improve access to care for rural patients who often travel long distances for their care. Medicare reimbursement however has been restricted to care provided through synchronous communication at a Medicare approved designated site. Proposed legislation that seeks to expand the use of this proven technology will offer respite to persons requiring chronic care, frequent home peritoneal dialysis as well as expedited assessment and treatment for those experiencing stroke sign and symptoms. In addition, to the improved quality of care, the cost saving associated with reduced readmissions for this population, makes it a viable option to be supported
Structure and Utilisation of Information and Communication Technologies for Continuing Education in Teledentistry in Brazil
Get PDFThe strengthening of Primary Care and the expansion of the Family Health Strategy have led to the need to offer quality services for health promotion. In this context of reformulation and need for qualification through effective actions of Continuing Education in Health, Teledentistry emerges from Telemedicine, which can be defined as the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for the exchange of data and information in health and provision of health services in situations where it is necessary to overcome geographical, temporal, social and cultural barriers. The objective of this study was to identify the existence of equipment in the health units and to verify the use of Telehealth by oral health teams in Brazil. This is an exploratory descriptive study with a quantitative approach, in which secondary data from the 1st Cycle of the Program for Improving Access and Quality in Primary Care for the year 2011/2012 were used. The results indicate that 19,889 (51%) of the health units evaluated have computers and 13,748 (35%) had Internet access. Among the professional dental surgeons evaluated, 254 (76%) noted that there are continuing education activities in their municipality, and they attended, in increasing order, on-site courses 213 (84%), exchange of experience 150 (59%), tutoring and preceptorship 56 (22%), Telehealth 54 (21%), distance learning / Open University of the Unified Health System 51 (20%) and Telemedicine University Network 9 (3.5%). It is concluded that the deficiency in the Brazilian regions in relation to the acquisition of computer equipment and connectivity capable of guaranteeing the use of information technologies becomes an obstacle to the digital inclusion of health professionals and the continuing education actions related to Telehealth
Mobile Malware Implications for IT Management
Get PDFSince the turn of the century malicious software, called malware, has been generated to infect not only computer systems but also ‘smart’ mobile phones. This malicious code is designed specifically to infect the mobile devices and disrupt the operation of the device or to send messages or make calls, resulting in financial loss to the user. The paper analyses trends in mobile malware from the listings of the malware descriptions. These trends show the increasing severity of the mobile malware problem, the introduction of new malware types, and the changing focus on the malware objectives; predictions of possible future trends are made. The implications of these trends for organisational management are discussed, and possible countermeasures to the risks are suggested
Tele-Education in Nursing Continuing Education Programmes: A Literature Review
No full textThis study is a literature review on the use of tele-education as a tool for the implementation of Continuing Education Programmes in nursing. The purpose was to evaluate the use of the Internet to facilitate the participation of nursing professionals in Continuing Education Programmes, in order to improve and systematise nursing care. We conclude that the Internet constitutes an important tool which can aid in quality assurance in nursing, and in implementing systematisation of nursing care
Telemedicine as a Health Promotion Tool: A Multidisciplinary Vision
Get PDFTelemedicine is a resource that contributes to improving the quality of medical care, reducing the time between diagnosis and therapy, and helping extend specialised and quality medical services to remote or poor locations. Teledermatology and Telecardiology encompass the application of telecommunication and computer technologies in dermatological and cardiological practice. The aim of this paper was to report the integration of a multidisciplinary health team providing remote assistance for diagnosis and management of dermatological and cardiovascular diseases, wherein second opinion was given to teams treating patients with difficulty in travelling to face-to-face consultations. Details were referred to the Hospital São Lucas, using a process provided by the MicroG eHealth platform, and specialists issued expert second opinions on each case. In this sense, teledermatology and telecardiology reports served as a tool to assist the general practitioner and family physician in deciding whether or not to refer patients to a specialist service