To improve patient care & safety of rural patients empowering the village doctors

Abstract

In most developing countries, although the vast majority of the people are living in the rural areas, the qualified medical doctors are not available there. Health care workers and village doctors are largely responsible for the rural medical care. Mishaps due to wrong diagnosis and inappropriate medication have been causing serious suffering that is preventable. In order to improve rural health care facilities and achieve health equity and patient safety, together with the local partners in Bangladesh, we set up a model center for empowering the village doctors and female health workers through training them to use smart and affordable medical devices and appropriate ICT tools, to address some of the most serious health problems of the rural disadvantaged people, and offer Point-of-Care services for women and children in particular. Our earlier e-Health initiatives in rural settings in Bangladesh with some ICT based solutions and approaches to local needs have shown potentials for improving village doctors’ performance. Taking advantages of the popularity, affordability, potentials and acceptance of smartphones and Internet access, this work provided a model for improving rural health environment. Our work first initiated in 2009, initiated included : i) identification of the problems and sustainable solutions, ii) created access to reliable, robust and cost effective medical devices, iii) developed education and training packages for safe use the diagnostic devices and ICT tools, iv) provided robust and reliable connectivity to the medical experts for disease treatment and offering Point of Care services, v) developed appropriate e-Learning content on health education for disease prevention and treat health problems which routinely afflict the rural people. Further e-Health work, with the local needs and conditions in mind, will gain acceptability among rural people for illness management, disease detection and prevention, health awareness improvement, and all that can lead to poverty reduction, and sustainable socio-economic development.