| 1. |
- Kifle, Mengistu, et al.
(författare)
-
Interplay of cost and adoption of tele-medicine in Sub-Saharan Africa : The case of tele-cardiology in Ethiopia
- 2006
-
Ingår i: Information Systems Frontiers. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1387-3326 .- 1572-9419. ; 8:3, s. 211-223
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- ...the barriers to diffusion of Tele-Medicine are not entirely technical. Cost has to simultaneously satisfy a number of stakeholders... (Anderson, Aydin and Jay, et al., 1994).Rising costs of the provision of healthcare have been a major issue for debate in both developing and developed countries. This is especially true of very capitalistic societies such as the United States where privatization of the healthcare sector has left many with little or no affordable healthcare. The situation is even worse in developing economies. Developing countries deal with various problems in the provision of health services and healthcare Tan et al. (E-medicine diffusion: E-medicine in Developed and Developing countries. Chapter 8 in E-health paradigm shift: Perspectives, domains and challenges. In Tan J. (Ed.), Imprint of Wiley, New York, Jossey-Bass, 2005). Some of these problems include acute shortages of healthcare professionals and medical facilities Mbarika et al. (Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS) 2005;6(5):130-170). Such shortages have resulted in growing numbers of middle to upper-class citizens of developing countries traveling abroad to seek necessary health services. Using a multi-method case study research, this paper examines the role of Tele-Medicine in the healthcare system and analyzes the costs and benefits of introducing Tele-Cardiology services in Ethiopia (a Sub-Saharan African country). This is a cost comparison study for the treatment of cardiac patients traveling abroad versus patients treated via Tele-Cardiology. Our findings show that Tele-Cardiology is clinically more feasible and more cost effective compared to patients traveling abroad for treatment.
|
|
| 2. |
- Kifle, Mengistu, et al.
(författare)
-
Telemedicine in sub-Saharan Africa : The case of teleophthalmology and eye care in Ethiopia
- 2006
-
Ingår i: Journal of The American Society For Information Science And Technology. - : Wiley. - 1532-2882 .- 1532-2890. ; 57:10, s. 1383-1393
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The authors examine the need and adoption of teleophthalmology in sub-Saharan Africa. Ethiopia, like most sub-Saharan African countries, is faced with limited specialists and health care services. These services are often concentrated in the urban areas, leaving most of the rural population (about 70% of the country) without adequate and timely health care delivery. In Ethiopia, the ratio of ophthalmologists to the population is 1:1,200,000, resulting in inadequate delivery of ophthalmology-related health care services. Using both primary and secondary data collection approaches, the authors report the need for telemedicine as well as the adoption and application of teleophthalmology in Ethiopia. Further, they present Ethiopia's teleophthalmology network, integrated teleconsultation, and teleeducation services. The authors conclude by presenting this research as a starting point to investigate further teleophthalmology and other telemedicine services for Ethiopia and by extension, other developing countries. Therefore, they bring a much-underresearched region (sub-Saharan Africa) and a much-underresearched technology (telemedicine) to the forefront of information systems (IS) research. It is the authors' hope that colleagues in the field will be motivated to investigate this '' forgotten '' region of the world that is yet to reap the full potentials of information and communications technologies (ICTs).
|
|
