Department of Health Policy and Management, College of Public Health, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
Woodward Academy, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Glob Health Action. 2023 Dec 31;16(1):2179163. doi: 10.1080/16549716.2023.2179163.
During the current period of the pandemic, telehealth has been a boon to the healthcare system by providing quality healthcare services at a safe social distance. However, there has been slow progress in telehealth services in low- and middle-income countries with little to no evidence of the cost and effectiveness of such programmes.
To provide an overview of the expansion of telehealth in low- and middle-income countries amid the COVID-19 pandemic and identify the challenges, benefits, and costs associated with implementing telehealth services in these countries.
We performed a literature review using the search term: 'country name AND ((telemedicine[Title][Abstract]) OR (telehealth[Title][Abstract] OR eHealth[Title][Abstract] OR mHealth[Title][Abstract]))'. Initially, we started with 467 articles, which were reduced to 140 after filtering out duplicates and including only primary research studies. Next, these articles were screened based on established inclusion criteria and 44 articles were finalised to be used in the review.
We found telehealth-specific software being used as the most common tool to provide such services. Nine articles reported patient satisfaction of greater than 90% with telehealth services. Moreover, the articles identified the ability to make a correct diagnosis to resolve the condition, efficient mobilisation of healthcare resources, increased accessibility for patients, increased service utilisation, and increased satisfaction as benefits of telehealth services, whereas inaccessibility, low technological literacy, and lack of support, poor security standards and technological concerns, loss of interest by the patients, and income impacts on physicians as challenges. The review could not find articles that explored the financial information on telehealth programme implementation.
Although telehealth services are growing in popularity, the research gap on the efficacy of telehealth is high in low- and middle-income countries. To better guide the future development of telehealth services, rigorous economic evaluation of telehealth is needed.
在当前大流行期间，远程医疗通过在安全的社交距离内提供高质量的医疗服务，成为医疗保健系统的福音。然而，在中低收入国家，远程医疗服务的进展缓慢，几乎没有此类项目的成本和效果的证据。
提供在 COVID-19 大流行期间中低收入国家远程医疗扩展的概述，并确定在这些国家实施远程医疗服务相关的挑战、益处和成本。
我们使用搜索词“国家名称 AND ((远程医疗[标题][摘要]) 或 (远程健康[标题][摘要]或电子健康[标题][摘要]或移动健康[标题][摘要]))”进行文献回顾。最初，我们有 467 篇文章，通过过滤重复项并仅包括主要研究文章后，减少到 140 篇。然后，根据既定的纳入标准对这些文章进行筛选，最终确定了 44 篇文章用于综述。
我们发现远程医疗专用软件是提供此类服务最常用的工具。有 9 篇文章报告患者对远程医疗服务的满意度超过 90%。此外，这些文章确定了通过远程医疗服务能够做出正确诊断以解决病情、高效调动医疗资源、增加患者可及性、增加服务利用率和提高满意度的能力，而无法获得服务、技术素养低、缺乏支持、安全标准和技术问题差、患者失去兴趣以及对医生收入的影响是挑战。综述未找到探索远程医疗项目实施财务信息的文章。
尽管远程医疗服务越来越受欢迎，但中低收入国家对远程医疗疗效的研究差距很大。为了更好地指导远程医疗服务的未来发展，需要对远程医疗进行严格的经济评估。
