Telemedicine for rural and underserved communities of Nepal

Abstract

Health workers in rural health care serve most of the population in Nepal, but are isolated from specialist support and access to current medical information. Fortunately, the advent of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has unleashed new opportunities for the delivery of health services. In Nepal, there are very remote and less developed communities with limited access to roads and poor infrastructure to access direct health services; here, telemedicine can be taken as the best alternative form to physically travelling and treating people. The strengths of telemedicine (TM) for remote populations include making specialty care more accessible, eliminating lengthy travel and costly transportation, and reducing the cost of some medical services in rural settings. This paper will focus on implications, barriers, proposed solutions, and future extensions of telemedicine in rural and remote places as well as a review on the kinds of services which are most appropriate in the context of Nepal. The main purpose of this paper is to explore practicability of telemedicine in Nepal and its scope of implementation and use. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.