Telemedicine and primary health: The virtual doctor project Zambia
Evans Mupela, Paul Mustard & Huw Jones
#2011-002
This paper is a commentary on a project application of telemedicine to
alleviate primary health care problems in Lundazi district in the
Eastern province of Zambia. The project dubbed '"The Virtual Doctor
Project' will use hard body vehicles fitted with satellite communication
devices and modern medical equipment to deliver primary health care
services to some of the neediest areas of the country. The relevance and
importance of the project lies in the fact that these areas are
hard-to-reach due to rugged natural terrain and have very limited
telecommunications infrastructure. The lack of these and other basic
services makes it difficult for medical personnel to settle in these
areas, which leads to an acute shortage of medical personnel. The paper
presents this problem and how it is addressed by 'The Virtual Doctor
Project', emphasizing that while the telemedicine concept is not new in
sub-Saharan Africa, the combination of mobility and connectivity to
service a number of villages 'on the go' is an important variation in
the shift back to the 1978 Alma Ata principles of the United Nations
World Health Organization (WHO).
This overview of the Virtual Doctor Project in Zambia provides insight
into both the potential for ICT, and the problems and limitations that
any 'real-world' articulation of this technology must confront.
Key Words: Telemedicine, Satellite, Primary health, Alma Ata
JEL Classification: O25, 041, O43, O47, F15, F43