Telemedicine in Sub-Saharan Africa: a proposed Delphi study

By the end of 2001, an estimated 40 million people worldwide - 2. 7 million under age 15 - were living with HIV/AIDS. More than 70 percent of these people (28.1 million) live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Another killer, malaria, is responsible for as many as half the deaths of African children under the age of five. The disease kills more than one million children each year - 2800 per day - in Africa alone. As such statistics demonstrate, the need for medical care in Sub-Saharan Africa is paramount. Sub-Saharan Africa has fewer than 10 doctors per 100000 people, and 14 countries do not have a single radiologist. The specialists and services that are available are concentrated in cities. This study examines the state of adoption of telemedicine in Sub-Saharan Africa. We present several examples of successful adoption of telemedicine in the continent, provide several research implications, and propose a Delphi study to identify the critical success factors that would enable successful implementation of telemedicine in Sub Saharan Africa. While we do not claim that telemedicine will solve all of Sub-Saharan Africa´s medical problems, we do contend that it is a starting point to reach Africans that live in areas with limited medical facilities and personnel.