(This section should be read in the context of the proposed
WONCA Policy on Using Information Technology to Improve Rural Health Care, 1998).
Information technology and telehealth offers a major potential
benefit for rural health care. Specific telehealth applications may provide
rural practitioners with rapid access to clinical specialist support and there
are many possibilities for the use of information technology to support and
train rural doctors.
In any telehealth development it is essential that the experts
involved have an understanding and respect for rural cultures or rural health
services. Otherwise it may spell the end of locally responsive health services.
Developments in this field may be helpful in the delivery
of high quality care in rural and remote areas provided they facilitate enhancement
of local skills and services.
Failure to base new developments on local rural needs, and
lack of consultation with rural stakeholders may result in the establishment
of inappropriate models of health care and undermine locally based services.
Telehealth is the use of electronic multimedia to deliver
health services from a distance. Planning for rural telehealth services must
include consideration of the range of telehealth services appropriate to local
healthcare needs and services. The cultural and social contexts into which the
services are being introduced must be understood, and services must be appropriate
to support or enhance local rural health services, not replace them.
Strategies
4.4.1 Information technology solutions should be needs based,
planned locally and empower local communities to take decisions on matters affecting
their own lives. Example, computer prescribing, CME on the Net, use of digital
cameras and store and forward technology
4.4.2 Information technology must supplement and not supplant
the individual focus of health care. Example, recognise the legitimacy of telemedicine
consultations.
4.4.3 All rural and remote health care workers need to have
access to reliable basic telecommunications in their own communities. National
governments and organisations should facilitate access to, and use of modern
telephonic communications, information technology and telehealth applications
to support rural practitioners and enhance rural health care.
4.4.4 Training in the use of computers and information technology
should be incorporated into the basic training of all health care practitioners
and should be provided for practitioners already in rural areas.
4.4.5 Rural practitioners need to be involved in the field
of research and development into telehealth and such research should seek to
assess the real value of technology to the local community.
4.4.6 WRITE (WONCA Rural Information Technology Exchange)
should continue to act as a forum and to advocate for appropriate information
technology within WONCA in cooperation with the WONCA Working Party on Rural
Practice and the WONCA Working Party on Informatics.
4.4.7 Evaluation of currently available technologies
with their appropriate implementation. Example, computerised prescribing.
4.4.8 Facilitate the distribution of computers to
developing countries.