Manyati Tarisai Kudakwashe, Mutsau Morgen
College of Economic and Management Sciences, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa.
Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Health Technol (Berl). 2021;11(2):341-348. doi: 10.1007/s12553-020-00485-8. Epub 2021 Feb 9.
The efficacy of leveraging telehealth services on clinical outcomes remains scarcely documented. We conducted a rapid review to explore the effectiveness of telehealth interventions for the diagnosis, contact tracing and care of the corona virus disease of 2019 in sub Saharan Africa. Using MEDLINE, Science Direct and Cochrane Library databases, a review was conducted during the month of July 2020 of peer reviewed articles reporting on the use of telehealth interventions in sub-Saharan Africa. All the studies were assessed against the inclusion criteria by two independent reviewers. The 7 studies included in the synthesis were conducted in 2 countries [Nigeria (× 1), Zimbabwe (× 1)], and commentaries covering the entire sub Saharan Africa in general (× 4) and to Uganda (× 1). All the included articles and commentaries were published in 2020. We established that mobile applications are effective in providing information for referrals of potential patients infected by COVID 19 and provides convenient access to routine care without the risk of exposure through close contact. In countries such as Nigeria, mobile positioning data significantly improved decision making, capacity and scope of contact tracing and surveillance of known contacts of confirmed cases. We noted that collaborations between the government, mobile network operators and technology companies were utilised for successful mobile positioning data tracing interventions for COVID patients. Mobile applications such as the Vula platform in South Africa were also noted as effective in providing psychological support to health care workers attending to patients.
利用远程医疗服务对临床结果的疗效仍鲜有文献记载。我们进行了一项快速综述，以探讨远程医疗干预措施在撒哈拉以南非洲地区对2019年冠状病毒病的诊断、接触者追踪和护理方面的有效性。利用MEDLINE、科学Direct和Cochrane图书馆数据库，于2020年7月对同行评审的关于撒哈拉以南非洲地区使用远程医疗干预措施的文章进行了综述。所有研究均由两名独立评审员根据纳入标准进行评估。纳入综合分析的7项研究在2个国家开展[尼日利亚（×1）、津巴布韦（×1）]，还有4篇是关于整个撒哈拉以南非洲地区的评论文章，1篇是关于乌干达的评论文章。所有纳入的文章和评论均发表于2020年。我们发现，移动应用程序在为感染新冠病毒19的潜在患者转诊提供信息方面很有效，并且能提供便捷的常规护理服务，而不会因密切接触带来暴露风险。在尼日利亚等国家，移动定位数据显著改善了决策制定、接触者追踪能力以及对确诊病例已知接触者的监测范围。我们注意到，政府、移动网络运营商和科技公司之间的合作被用于成功开展针对新冠患者的移动定位数据追踪干预措施。南非的Vula平台等移动应用程序也被认为在为照顾患者的医护人员提供心理支持方面很有效。
