In South Africa, telemedicine use has significantly increased, in part because of the emergence of Covid-19.
Although telemedicine is not new, during the Covid-19 pandemic it became a more prevalent and widely accepted method to provide access to healthcare while maintaining social distance.
According to the findings of a study on healthcare access, 20% of impoverished rural households in South Africa live more than an hour away from the nearest hospital, and 15% of these households live more than an hour away from the nearest clinic.
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Dr Elbie Ward, service providers manager at Bestmed Medical Scheme, says that telemedicine has an increasingly important role in modern healthcare.
Telemedicine is the virtual diagnosis and treatment of patients using telecommunications technology.
This includes video calls, Teams, Zoom, and platforms designed specifically for this purpose.
It differs from traditional consultations in that there is less human interaction, patient monitoring is remote, and visual cues needed for an accurate diagnosis may be overlooked.
She says its original purpose was to create access to quality healthcare for South African communities in under-served areas.
“This is a valuable tool for the country. But in doing so, it is important to take into account South Africa’s extremely wide digital divide.”
Ward told IOL that obtaining virtual consultations is difficult for many South Africans due to the high cost of data in the country and the limited connection and internet-enabled device access among the nation’s underprivileged groups generally.
The Health Professions Council of South Africa introduced a revised set of guidelines in 2021, allowing for more extensive use of telemedicine during the pandemic.
Under these conditions, the regulatory body provides, among other amendments, that it is ‘desirable’ for practitioners to make use of telemedicine, preferably where there is already an established patient-practice relationship, although this is not a compulsory requirement.
While telemedicine has been a valuable tool during lockdown, allowing patients and those with comorbidities to continue to receive care from the safety of their homes, it is important to provide a fair assessment of telemedicine's potential of how it can function in light of the country’s current economic, political and social climate, as well as the factors influencing these factors in the future, says Ward.
“Telemedicine works well for uncomplicated consultations, where it acts supplementary to face-to-face consultations. It can, however, never be a solution on its own and cannot replace face-to-face/in-person consultations. The best case would be to incorporate it in existing facilities like clinics, where it can be used to complement existing services.”
Even though we have come to regard the internet as a basic need, its accessibility is already a challenge that would quickly exclude the very people who require it.
“With increased internet access, innovations such as telemedicine will play an important role in providing quality healthcare to more people. Furthermore, this will and should never be a complete transition,” says Ward.
“Telemedicine or virtual consultations will never replace traditional face-to-face consultations and should always be used as a supplementary rather than primary.”
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