Enabling Telehealth

Health

Enabling Telehealth

Adam Green

Senior editor, EMEA

Adam is a senior editor for The Economist Intelligence Unit's thought leadership division in EMEA, focusing primarily on the Middle East and Africa. In this role, he has worked on in-depth research studies, surveys, multimedia documentaries and infographics on topics ranging from healthcare to personal finance. Previously, Adam was Deputy Editor of This is Africa, a bimonthly magazine published by the Financial Times. He also worked as Communications Officer for the International Growth Centre, a research institute based at the London School of Economics and funded by the UK Department for International Development. Adam holds a Masters in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, with a grade of distinction, and an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Leeds. His independent research and journalism has been published by the Middle East Institute.

Key findings include:

Ensuring access to telehealth depends not just on the technologies, but on the broader enabling environment, especially policy harmonisation, communications infrastructure, and skills.
Governments should consider more efficient licensing if telehealth is to enable patients to access medical expertise outside of their state, province or country. Where governance standards converge, regulatory bodies should trust more in the licensing decisions of neighbouring authorities to create ‘portable’ medical licenses that allow health providers to interact with patients in other regions.
Telehealth provision must go hand-in-hand with Internet infrastructure roll out, since vulnerable populations are the lowest users of the Internet. The digital divide stubbornly persists even in more advanced economies.
Telehealth can enable a wider cast of actors to collaborate in patient care, from doctors to social workers and nutritionists. However, there is a challenge in balancing more users on the one hand, with the need to build usable systems with the requisite security and privacy.
Health providers may need support in working with new technologies. Medical providers vary considerably in their support for, and adoption of, telehealth. Hospitals and providers may wish to develop training programs to show relevance and usage, as well as to impart etiquette and best practice codes such as upholding the same standards of patient-doctor interaction that holds in face-to-face consultations.

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Enabling Telehealth

Health

Enabling Telehealth

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