Telehealth presents an ideal opportunity to address health care delivery gaps in South African and Covid-19 has demonstrated that now is the time to explore, embrace and regulate future practices of this gamechanger. While telehealth presents the opportunity to address inequity in healthcare access in South Africa, key implementation barriers include provider concerns regarding patient safety and clinical safeguards, impact on revenue streams, the lack of an enabling regulatory framework, inadequate technology infrastructure and the disruption to existing modes of practice. This paper proposes a multi-stakeholder approach for addressing these challenges to derive the potential benefit for health care delivery.
Read the full article on page 14 of the SAMJ April 2022 Edition.