The Role of E-Health in Developing Nations

Many developing nations have begun to introduce elements of e-Health to improve service provision. This chapter provides an account of work in the area including case studies where pioneers have utilised modern mobile technologies to quickly and efficiently introduce new mHealth interventions, despite being resource-limited and having a heavy disease burden. Telemedicine has become well established, linking these nations with specialists in centres of excellence. Obstacles such as cost, inadequate infrastructure, data security, and the lack of a trained health informatics workforce need to be resolved. Several innovative solutions have been put forward: satellite broadband access for the most remote areas, international sponsorship initiatives, use of open source software, and exchange programmes for staff education. There is strong support from the World Health Organization and other international bodies, as development of the eHealth agenda has the potential to help ease access barriers and improve provision of healthcare in developing countries. This is explored in this chapter.