Victor Mbarika ICT Weblog

Interplay of cost and adoption of tele-medicine in Sub-Saharan Africa: The case of tele-cardiology in Ethiopia

By Mengistu Kifle, Victor W. A. Mbarika and Pratim Datta (Information Systems Frontiers. Volume 8, Number 3 / July, 2006. 211-223)

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).

Telemedicine in sub-Saharan Africa: The case of teleophthalmology and eye care in Ethiopia

Mengistu Kifie, Victor WA. Mbarika, and Pratim Datta. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). 57. 10 (2006): 1383 - 1393.

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.