Department of TeleHealth, Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
Telemed J E Health. 2012 Jan-Feb;18(1):32-7. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2011.0146. Epub 2011 Dec 8.
Sub-Saharan Africa has a disproportionate burden of disease and an extreme shortage of health workers. There are already too few doctors to train doctors in specialities and sub-specialties. E-health is seen as a possible solution through distance education, telemedicine, and computerized health information systems but there are few people trained in e-health. We describe 12 years of experience at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZ-N) in education and training in postgraduate medical disciplines, medical informatics, and telemedicine.
Videoconferencing of seminars and grand rounds to regional training hospitals commenced in 2001 and has grown to 40 h of interactive conferencing taking place weekly during academic terms involving over 33,000 participants in 2010. Videoconferenced sessions are directly recorded to DVD and DVDs are sent to other medical schools in Africa that do not have the infrastructure to directly connect. E-HEALTH EDUCATION: Students and academic staff were initially sent to the United States for training in medical informatics and workshops were held in South Africa for people from sub-Saharan Africa. This led to the development of postgraduate academic programs in medical informatics and telemedicine at UKZ-N. African students were then brought to UKZ-N for training. The model was changed from UKZ-N to students and staff based at their home universities with the aim of building capacity in the staff at partner institutions so that they can in time offer their own e-health academic programs.
The need for capacity development in all aspects of e-health in sub-Saharan Africa is great and innovative solutions are required.
撒哈拉以南非洲地区的疾病负担不成比例，卫生工作者极度短缺。现有的医生人数太少，无法培训专业和亚专业的医生。电子医疗被视为通过远程教育、远程医疗和计算机化健康信息系统来解决问题的一种可能方案，但目前只有少数人接受过电子医疗培训。我们描述了夸祖鲁-纳塔尔大学（UKZ-N）在研究生医学学科、医学信息学和远程医疗方面的 12 年教育和培训经验。
2001 年开始，研讨会和大查房的视频会议被引入到地区培训医院，这一举措逐渐发展，到 2010 年每周有 40 小时的互动会议，有超过 33000 名参与者，这些会议涉及到 20 个不同的医学专业。视频会议内容被直接录制到 DVD 上，并寄送给非洲其他没有直接连接基础设施的医学院。
最初，学生和学术人员被派往美国接受医学信息学培训，并在南非为来自撒哈拉以南非洲的人员举办研讨会。这导致 UKZ-N 开设了医学信息学和远程医疗研究生学术课程。然后，非洲学生被带到 UKZ-N 接受培训。该模式从 UKZ-N 转移到学生和工作人员的家乡大学，旨在增强合作伙伴机构的员工能力，以便他们能够及时提供自己的电子医疗学术课程。
撒哈拉以南非洲地区在电子医疗的各个方面都需要能力建设，需要创新性的解决方案。
