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Telemedicine for Healthier Community Development in Pakistan

Telemedicine for Healthier Community Development in Pakistan

Bushra Hamid (PMAS-Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan), N. Z. Jhanjhi (Taylor's University, Malaysia), Mamoona Humayun (Jouf University, Saudi Arabia), Farkhanda Qamar (PMAS-Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan), and Vasaki Ponnusamy (Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia)
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 21
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-7114-9.ch015
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Abstract

Providing affordable and quality healthcare is the most burning demand for humanity. It is a fact that more or less half of the world's population resides in rural areas, and a majority of these people are left without the most basic amenities, such as healthcare and education. It is considered difficult to open and manage healthcare facilities in any community using traditional healthcare models for the states with limited resources particularly for developing countries. One of the most popular substitute tools is telemedicine to improve healthcare for underprivileged groups. In telemedicine, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are employed to ensure healthcare at a distance. On the other hand, one of the main problems in developing countries is the quality and cost of healthcare. In health research, telemedicine has become a new hope for eliminating bottlenecks. In this study, the authors have examined what challenges and issues developing countries are facing in implementation of telemedicine; particularly, they examine Pakistan as a case.
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1. Introduction

The economic growth and development of countries where ICT has been implemented successfully brings clear differences (Muzafar, S., & Jhanjhi, N. Z., 2020). Employment of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in medical care is generally referred to as e-health, telemedicine or telecare. In short, telemedicine is about delivering health services remotely using ICT. Telemedicine is an emerging field in health science that is said to improve patient access to health care, make critical patient care decisions in crucial time, cut costs, promote 24/7 coverage and that Remote monitoring of chronic diseases enabled (Wallace, RA 2018). The operational mix of information and communication technologies (ICT) with medicine and various other applications in education and training in the health sector offers enormous potential and advantages to meet the challenges of health care in rural and inaccessible areas. It can be so simple that two healthcare professionals discuss a patient's medical problems and get advice on a simple phone call, including sending electronic patient records with medical data, investigative assessments for example ECG, Complete blood count, radiological images and so on, additionally conducting online collaborative medical Video conferencing, video conferencing with broadband telecommunications media provided using satellite broadcasting and land-dwelling networks. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), telemedicine is defined as: ” The delivery of health care services, where distance is a critical factor, by all health care professionals using information and communication technologies for the exchange of valid information for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries, research and evaluation, and for the continuing education of health care providers, all in the interests of advancing the health of individuals and their communities” (WHO, A. 1997). Telemedicine literally means “distance healing”, derived from the Greek word “tele”, which means “distance”, and the Latin term “mederi”, which means “healing”. Figure 1 shows the telemedicine process.

Figure 1.

Telemedicine Process

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