An Assessment of the Provision of Telehealth Services by Zambian Mobile Service Providers: A case study of Library and Information Science Students at The University of Zambia

Abstract

Economic development of African countries has reached the level where the government can begin a strategic reform of health systems to create a modern health care delivery system, meeting the world standards of health care. Zambia, being one of these countries, made a decision to implement telehealth services. The Ministry of Health in conjunction with various stakeholders like Zambian mobile service providers developed strategies using information and communications technologies (ICTs) to transform healthcare so as to alleviate the delivery of health care. However, Zambia is still a developing nation, therefore they are some challenges. The aim of this research was to assess the provision of telehealth services by Zambian mobile services providers. Special focus was directed to user awareness, usage of telehealth services, fields of healthcare where telehealth is being applied, the measures that providers are taking to improve the service, and the barriers faced. A target group of 100 LIS students from University of Zambia was selected since the students are from almost all corners of the country and are ICT literate. A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect data. With regards to awareness 57 percent of the target population were aware of telehealth services provided in Zambia. The results indicated that telehealth services were applied particularly in six fields namely counselling, chronic health, cholera, fitness, parenting and sexual health. Out of 70% were found to be users of the telehealth services provided by Zambian mobile service providers and out of those 70, 15 % were frequent users, frequent being once or twice a week. The majority expressed that the measures being taken to provide telehealth services in communities without infrastructure needed for offering telehealth were not sufficient due to poor advertising, services provided by the MSPs are not marketed well enough, poor network, intended benefactors are not reached due to lack of infrastructure and low levels of awareness. The biggest barrier in the provision of health was found to be lack of awareness followed by lack of policies and legal frameworks. Ultimately, the paper assessed that telehealth provision by Zambian mobile service providers is fully functional or operational and the scope of improving the service in wide enough despite the challenges involved.