Telemedicine In Pakistan: A Story From American Press
There are many other telemedicine projects and companies in Pakistan. Few of them get coverage outside Pakistan. I found this story, which appeared at MarketWatch and other sites, to be interesting, though it reads a bit like marketing for IBM and Wateen. In an upcoming post I will share related work being carried out by Pakistani researchers.
Part of the funding came from the U.S. Department of State under the U.S. Government’s Digital Freedom Initiative, which “seeks to encourage the spread of technology to the developing world.”
A 5-year-old boy in Pakistan no longer has to suffer without treatment of an irritating skin rash thanks to care from a doctor in a city 110 miles from his rural village.
The high-tech telemedicine system that made the treatment possible was implemented with the leadership of a company on the other side of the world: Armonk-based IBM Corp.
IBM was tapped by the State Department to lead a public-private partnership that includes Wateen Telecom, Motorola Inc., Medweb Inc., the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Defense Department Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center and the Pakistani government.
The telemedicine system links the “hub” of Holy Family Hospital in the city of Rawalpindi, Punjab province, with the “spoke” of District Headquarters Hospital in Attock, which has limited resources to treat thousands of surrounding villagers.
Doctors in Rawalpindi, armed with personal computers and videoconferencing equipment, “see” patients remotely and confer with their counterparts at the district hospital.
Medical records and information, including digital photos of skin lesions, for example, are shared via a wireless network provided by Motorola and Wateen Telecom and navigated with Medweb software.
Dr. Sadia Rafiq, the IBM medical consultant for the Pakistan Telemedicine Project, said just 16 primary-care doctors work in Attock while there is a need for 64.
There are no radiologists, pathologists, dermatologists or many other specialists. If a villager needs additional care, he or she often cannot afford the trip to the larger hospital in Rawalpindi.
As a result, Rafiq said, ailments that aren’t emergencies are ignored. Since the telemedicine project became active this summer, patients have come in with complaints that had been ignored, including a goiter that was untreated for 30 years.
“The simple diseases that are not treated before can now be treated,” she said.
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