K-MET AND WORLD HEALTH PARTNERS TO BUILD TELE-MEDICINE NETWORK WORTH USD 700,000

Jun 18, 2014 William Adoyo Kisumu, News 0

World Health Partners and Kisumu Medical and Education Trust (K-MET) have partnered to build a Tele-medicine network in Kisumu County worth US $700,000 to bring healthcare to under-served communities in Kisumu and Siaya counties.

The Trust Programs Manager Sam Owoko says through the network, the organizations will offer remote and under-severed communities in Western Kenya access to better healthcare and reproductive health services.

Owoko says the new initiative aims to build on World Health Partner’s innovative and scaleable social franchising model from India.

He says the Trust’s existing social franchise network of Huduma Poa clinics will be used to respond to the needs of under served populations.

Speaking to Kisumu News ahead of the launch of the program, Owoko says they plan to enroll 60 village level entrepreneurs in the Tele-medicine enabled network and link them through a referral system with 6 clinics operated by nurses and clinical officers.

He explained that each network franchise in the new network will be equipped with information, communication tools and medical diagnostic to communicate with doctors based at a central medical facility in Kisumu.

Tele-medicine services works in different levels, primary care and specialist referral services is one of them that may involve a primary care or allied health professional providing a consultation with a patient or a specialist assisting the primary care physician in rendering a diagnosis.

These services may involve the use of live interactive video or the use of store and forward transmission of diagnostic images, vital signs and video clips along with patient data for later review.

Remote patient monitoring, including home Tele-health, uses devices to remotely collect and send data to a home health agency or a remote diagnostic testing facility (RDTF) for interpretation. Such applications might include a specific vital sign, such as blood glucose or heart ECG or a variety of indicators for home bound patients. Such services can be used to supplement the use of visiting nurses.

The other services that the consumers are going to enjoy under this are medical and health information includes the use of the Internet and wireless devices for consumers to obtain specialized health information and on-line discussion groups to provide peer-to-peer support.

Medical education provides continuing medical education credits for health professionals and special medical education seminars for targeted groups in remote locations.

Networked programs link tertiary care hospitals and clinics with outlying clinic and community health centers in rural or suburb areas. These links will use dedicated high-speed lines or the Internet for telecommunication links between sites. community health centers in the town and the suburb areas for effective Tele-medicine network.

Owoko said Point-to-point connections using private high speed networks will be used by hospitals and clinics to deliver services directly to community or outsource special services to independent medical service providers

(quote)Such outsourced services include radiology, stroke assessment, mental health and intensive care services.said Owoko

Monitoring center links will be used for cardiac, pulmonary or fetal monitoring, home care and related services that provide care to patients in the home.

Normally land-line or wireless connections are used to communicate directly between the patient and the center although some systems use the Internet the Kenyan environment will use hand mobiles to relay information.

Web-based e-health patient service sites provide direct consumer outreach and services over the Internet. Under Tele-medicine, these include those sites that provide direct patient care.

The Tele-medicine network is a first of its kind in Kenya and many will be delighted to see and experience its use in the lake side city while the medicine practitioners will get it easy to relay information to their patients directly after diagnosis without them being called upon to pick the results.