Kamulegeya Louis Henry, Bwanika John Mark, Musinguzi Davis, Bakibinga Pauline
The Medical Concierge Group, Kampala, Uganda.
African Population and Health Research center, Nairobi, Kenya.
Pan Afr Med J. 2020 May 20;35(Suppl 2):43. doi: 10.11604/pamj.supp.2020.35.2.23115. eCollection 2020.
In response to coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic (COVID-19), the government of Uganda instituted movement restrictions to curb disease spread. However, this affected accessibility to medical services in a setting where the healthcare system is not equipped to handle most healthcare needs of the populace outside hospital premises. This gap led to the prominence and unprecedented rise in the use of digital health technologies to deliver health information and services at a distance (telehealth) during the COVID-19 outbreak. The use of telehealth modalities including tele-consultation, tele-psychiatry, call centers and mobile phone health information dissemination increased. The COVID-19 pandemic augmented the rising role of digital health technologies as a much needed aspect of medical service delivery in our times. However, the efficacy and impact on clinical outcomes across various healthcare thematic areas need to be explored further and more evidence generated.
为应对2019冠状病毒病疫情（COVID-19），乌干达政府实施了行动限制措施以遏制疾病传播。然而，在医疗系统尚无能力满足民众在医院以外场所的大多数医疗需求的情况下，这影响了医疗服务的可及性。这一差距导致在COVID-19疫情期间，利用数字健康技术远程提供健康信息和服务（远程医疗）变得突出且前所未有的普遍。包括远程会诊、远程精神病学、呼叫中心和手机健康信息传播在内的远程医疗模式的使用有所增加。COVID-19疫情增强了数字健康技术作为我们这个时代医疗服务提供中急需方面的日益重要的作用。然而，需要进一步探索其在各个医疗主题领域对临床结果的疗效和影响，并产生更多证据。
