Telemedicine technology for hospitals

The advanced use of information and communication technology makes it possible for a single doctor to attend to more patients than by depending on conventional methods while also making prescriptions online.

The good news was the gist of remarks made by Wilson Mkama, Permanent Secretary in the Health and Social Welfare Ministry, when he opened a three-day Cross Country Learning Event in Health in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

Among the delegates at the function were health experts from Ghana, Mali, Uganda and Tanzania.

Mkama would not say exactly when Tanzania would begin enjoying the benefits brought about by the technology but was optimistic that the development would make the expenses patients usually incur visiting referral hospitals no longer necessary.

That would also enable the government to make more effective use of the few doctors available in the country, he added.

One doctor in Tanzania currently serves more than 23,000 patients on average, while the recommended World Health Organisation ratio is 1:7500.

The Mkama said that, thanks to the wonders of ICTs, a network of medical experts would be co-ordinating the relevant operations at regional and referral hospitals across the country.

"The health sector touches on very important aspects of human life but has always found it hard to have all the resources it needs to function properly. ICTs have a great potential for leveraging and bridging the gap between the demand for and availability of those resources," he pointed out.

He said the Government recognised the importance of ICTs as an enabling tool for effective delivery of health and other services and for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

"That was why the Government adopted the National Information and Communication Technology Policy, which aims at developing and harnessing the use of ICTs in the country's social and economic development," he added.

Mkama said the Government had detailed health and other experts to study how best the telemedicine option could be implemented while taking into close account the realities of the country's social, economic and geographical setting.

Team Manager Deem Vermeulen, from the Netherlands-based International Institute for Communication and Development, noted at the event that health services in Tanzania are vastly better than they were in the 1990s when he worked with different health centres in the country.

He said when he was in the country during those years, decent health services were available only in a few special, mainly private, hospitals but now even Government hospitals at the regional and district levels offered good services.

Vermeulen expressed hope that the application of ICTs in the health sector in Tanzania would make the quality of services improve, adding that his institute would facilitate distance learning in ICTs for health practitioners in the country.

He commended the ICT industry in Tanzania for playing a monumental role in serving as a catalyst for positive developments in different sectors.

For years the institute has engaged in an array of activities and implemented different projects aimed at enhancing the advancement of professionals, implementing pilot projects on the management of health information systems and others directly supporting the health sector.

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