Telehealth in Nigeria: Meaning, Roles, Cons, Pros, and Examples
Telehealth is also known as telemedicine. It is a medical consultation that happens remotely. More often than not, it may be through video or telephone calls. In some quarters, it has been upgraded to health platforms — websites and apps.
With an outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Telehealth became a necessity. There was a high need for acute healthcare services nationwide. Consequently, medical professionals turned to virtual visits to attend to people’s non-urgent medical requests. Telemedicine is helpful in conditions like orthopedic, stroke, sore throat, malaria, headache, cardiovascular condition, and other conditions. There are also some chronic diseases that Telehealth can manage; they include, HIV, diabetes, congestive heart failure, hypertension and other conditions.
Furthermore, Telehealth provides medical education. Because of online platforms, medical students can now access learnings from specialists regardless of distant locations.
Although the forgoing highlights the roles that Telehealth plays in the healthcare industry, there are however some cons of Telehealth. Telemedicine takes time and costs money. Time is required to train medical personnel on the new systems and operations. Money is needed to purchase equipment. In addition, telemedicine reduces the staff strength in a hospital. Consequently, there is less medical staff for consultations. There is also the possibility of incomplete history of patients. That is, it is likely for a first-timer care giver not to have access to records of past visits of a patient because this patient was attended to by another medical personnel. Such occurrence can result in reduced care continuity; because a doctor does not know a patient’s virtual history or have notes about the remote care.
Regardless of the aforementioned cons of telemedicine, there are numerous encouraging pros of Telehealth which can help patients get healthier, and also happier with the health system.
First, Telehealth allows a patient to have easy access to healthcare services. This is because the service is not rendered in-person but virtual. People across geographical boundaries can through video conferencing, apps, and online management systems access healthcare services.
In addition, virtual services deliver better healthcare because it saves the time of patients, compared to in-person visits. Patients, at the comfort of their locations, can have on-demand or scheduled consultations with specialists. It offers utmost convenience for patients and doctors.
In lieu of the aforementioned convenience, telemedicine further saves cost for the patient and the health service provider. Telehealth removes the transportation expense incurred during regular checkups by a patient. This is because the patient now receives medical attention in his or her respective locales. The costs of healthcare services are reduced by telemedicine through electronic data storage, remote analysis, and monitoring services. This ultimately saves money for the health service provider.
Telehealth gives the opportunity for patients to have their healthcare issues addressed promptly. That is, we can now have real-time healthcare consultations and learn about treatment options in minutes. This will result in better patient care.
Lastly, telemedicine provides patients in rural areas the benefit to access more specialists. These patients can now receive medical attention from specific physician that they need, regardless of location.
There are some Telehealth platforms and Apps in Nigeria. This suggests that the challenges Nigerians face before obtaining access to quality treatment would be a thing of the past with the advent of telemedicine. Below are notables Telehealth in Nigeria:
Hudibia
Hudibia means ‘see a doctor.’ It is a mobile application that was launched by a trained surgeon and medical practitioner, Ahjoku Amadi-Obi. With Hudibia, patients can now check out medical experts, see a doctor using video conferencing or obtain a referral. Patients can also book a face-to-face appointment.
GeroCare
Co-founded by Ebi Ofrey, Ajibola Meraiyebu and Bruce Lucas, GeroCare provides home-based medical care for older adults. The elderly, upon subscription at a low cost, are administered health care peculiar to their needs at home.
JBS Medicare
Similar to GeroCare, the UK trained Geriatric consultant, Dr Toyin Ajala, established JBS Medicare to provide elderly healthcare.
WellaHealth
Founded in 2017 by Dr Ikpeme Neto, WellaHealth is a thriving healthtech. It provides quality malaria diagnosis and treatment at 450 Naira for its users. The plan also includes speaking to a doctor and obtaining health screening tests.
DRO Health
DRO Health is a Telehealth that offers remote consultations with competent doctors. They also provide referrals for diagnostics examinations where necessary. DRO Heath sources drugs from manufacturers and engages logistics members to carry out the delivery. Therefore, they facilitate the delivery of medicines prescribed during consultations. This is an easy, fast and affordable telemedicine.
These are just some of the notable telemedicine in Nigeria. With the information provided in this article, patients can now take an approach towards TeleHealth. Health service providers can now improve access to quality care by approaching telemedicine.
