Abstract:
This study examined online telemedicine services in the teaching hospitals in Edo States as
perceived by counsellors and health practitioners. The teaching hospitals covered are: Irrua
Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH) and Irrua, University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH).
The descriptive survey design was adopted for this study. The population of the study covered all
the 3,224 staff in Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH) and Irrua, University of Benin
Teaching Hospital (UBTH). The staff covers the 700 counsellors and counsellor educators, 591
Doctors, 1,515 Nurses, 267 Laboratory Scientists, 105 Pharmacist, 22 Physiotherapists, and 23
Radiographers. A sample of 1612 staff was drawn for the study. The proportionate random
sampling technique was used to draw a sample. 50 percent of the staff was drawn as sample from
each of the teaching hospitals. The questionnaire titled: Online Telemedicine Service Survey
Questionnaire (OTSSQ) was used. Descriptive such as frequency count (%), means and charts
were used to analyse the data collected. The result obtained showed that only Teledermatology,
Telenursing, store and forward and real time (interactive) are the telemedicine services provided
in the teaching hospitals among several others – Telecardialogy, Teleradiology, Telepathology,
Telepharmacy, and remote monitoring. Telemedicine are greatly applied within specific
specialties, applied for clinical problems and applied for practitioner support in the teaching
hospitals in Edo State. Inadequate medical practitioners, inadequate patient record, time
consumption, insufficient medical records, difficulty in retrieving record, unfavorable
government policy, poor funding, poor internet facilities, challenges to patient privacy, and
inadequate of infrastructure are the perceived challenges associated with the use of telemedicine
in the teaching hospitals in Edo State. It was therefore recommended that there is need for basic
training and familiarity with the computer and associated communication systems in order to
facilitate the use of telemedicine and telehealth applications and systems. |
