Telemedicine Design for Rural Areas as a Framework of e-Health Implementation

Access to high quality health services is needed to maintain the health of the community to be better. Urban health services are relatively easy to access, which is unlikely to happen in rural areas. This does not apply to rural areas. Besides mobilization location factors, only a small amount of health workers are willing to work in remote areas. Health services provided there are mostly conventional. This is partly affected by the lagging of technology infrastructure in rural areas compared to urban areas. The level of ICT adoption in rural communities is still far behind compared to urban communities. Telemedicine is a form of e-health implementation to improve health services for the community. Telemedicine provides solutions in health services for patients in remote areas which has difficulty accessing referral health facilities with adequate equipment. Telemedicine is a health service carried out remotely by transferring electronic medical data from one location to another. Thus, it will facilitate rural communities in accessing health services. This study aims to design telemedicine for rural areas as a framework for the implementation of e-health. The methodology used in this study is system planning cycle method for the implementation of electronic health systems. The results of this study are recommendations from the telemedicine framework for the implementation of e-health for rural areas.

I. Background

Telemedicine is essentially a remote doctor-patient interaction. This is why many believe telemedicine may save small hospitals that are struggling, and provide quality care to patients, right in their homes. Telemedicine has great potential to expand the access and improve the quality of rural healthcare. It hypothetically reduce burdens for patients, such as travelling to receive specialty care, and improves monitoring, timeliness, and communications within the healthcare system.