ABSTRACT
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the highest maternal and under-five mortality rates in the world. The advent of the coronavirus disease 2019 exacerbated the region's problems by overwhelming the health systems and affecting access to healthcare through travel restrictions and rechanelling of resources towards the containment of the pandemic. The region failed to achieve the Millenium Development Goals on maternal and child mortalities, and is poised to fail to achieve the same goals in the Sustainable Development Goals. To improve on the maternal and child health outcomes, many SSA countries introduced digital technologies for educating pregnant and nursing women, making doctors’ appointments and sending reminders to mothers and expectant mothers, as well as capturing information about patients and their illnesses. However, the collected epidemiological data are not being utilised to inform patient care and improve on the quality, efficiency and access to maternal, neonatal and child health (MNCH) care. To the researchers’ best knowledge, no review paper has been published that focuses on digital health for MNCH care in SSA and proposes data-driven approaches to the same. Therefore, this study sought to: (1) identify digital systems for MNCH in SSA;(2) identify the applicability and weaknesses of the digital MNCH systems in SSA;and (3) propose a data-driven model for diverging emerging technologies into MNCH services in SSA to make better use of data to improve MNCH care coverage, efficiency and quality. The PRISMA methodology was used in this study. The study revealed that there are no data-driven models for monitoring pregnant women and under-five children in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the available digital health technologies mainly based on SMS and websites. Thus, the current digital health systems in SSA do not support real-time, ubiquitous, pervasive and data-driven healthcare. Their main applicability is in non-real-time pregnancy monitoring, education and information dissemination. Unless new and more effective approaches are implemented, SSA might remain with the highest and unacceptable maternal and under-five mortality rates globally. The study proposes feasible emerging technologies that can be used to provide data-driven healthcare for MNCH in SSA, and the recommendations on how to make the transition successful as well as the lessons learn from other regions.
ABSTRACT
Aims: To identify virtual healthcare services and digital health technologies deployed in South Africa during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the challenges associated with their use. Methods: To determine the status of digital health utilization during COVID-19 in South Africa, the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses model was used to perform a systematic and in-depth critical analysis of previously published studies in well-known and trusted online electronic databases using specific search keywords words that are relevant to this study. We selected published peer-reviewed articles available from the onset of COVID-19 to July 2021. Results: Total of 24 articles were included into this study. This study revealed that South Africa adopted digital technologies such as SMS-based solutions, mobile health applications, telemedicine and telehealth, WhatsApp-based systems, artificial intelligence and chatbots and robotics to provide healthcare services during COVID-19 pandemic. These innovative technologies have been used for various purposes including screening infectious and non-infectious diseases, disease surveillance and monitoring, medication and treatment compliance, creating awareness and communication. The study also revealed that teleconsultation and e-prescription, telelaboratory and telepharmacy, teleeducation and teletraining, teledermatology, teleradiology, telecardiology, teleophthalmology, teleneurology, telerehabilitation, teleoncology and telepsychiatry are among virtual healthcare services delivered through digital health technologies during COVID-19 in South Africa. However, these smart digital health technologies face several impediments such as infrastructural and technological barriers, organization and financial barriers, policy and regulatory barriers as well as cultural barriers. Conclusion: Although COVID-19 has invigorated the use of digital health technologies, there are still some shortcomings. The outbreak of pandemics like COVID-19 in the future is not inevitable. Therefore, we recommend increasing community networks in rural areas to bridge the digital divide and the modification of mHealth policy to advocate for the effective use of innovative technologies in healthcare and the development of sustainable strategies for resources mobilization through private-public partnerships as well as joining available international initiatives advocating for smart digital health.
ABSTRACT
The adoption of non-invasive smart implants is inevitable due to recent technological advancements in smart implants and the increasing demand to provide pervasive and personalized care. The integration of non-invasive smart implants presents unprecedented opportunities for effective disease prevention, real-time health data collection, early detection of diseases, real-time monitoring of chronic diseases, virtual patient care, patient-tailored treatment, and minimally invasive management of diseases. Even though the research work in this area is nascent, this study presents the potential benefits and use of non-invasive smart implants in healthcare while reflecting on the potential challenges and limitations of their utilization. With current technological advancements, the adoption of non-invasive smart implants is regaining momentum in managing chronic conditions and diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, cognitive impairment;orthopedic surgery, dental surgery;and managing and remotely monitoring infectious diseases such as the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, the full adoption and utilization of non-invasive smart implants still encounter barriers such as lack of policies and frameworks regulating their use, limited memory space, health consequences and implants' failure, clinical challenges, health hazards imposed by non-invasive smart implants, health data security, and privacy risks. Therefore, there is a need for robust security and privacy measures as well as the formulation of policies guiding the development and use of non-invasive smart implants. With the gained experience from smart implants, the next generation of non-invasive smart implants may include sophisticated modern computational techniques that can analyze health data and suggest adequate therapeutic actions.
ABSTRACT
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the attention has now shifted towards universal vaccination to gracefully lift strict COVID-19 restrictions previously imposed to contain the spread of the disease. Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing an exponential increase of infections and deaths coupled with vaccines shortages, personal protective equipment, weak health systems and COVID-19 emerging variants. Some developed countries integrated telemedicine to reduce the impacts of the shortage of healthcare professionals and potentially reduce the risk of exposure, ensuring easy delivery of quality health services while limiting regular physical contact and direct hospitalization. However, the adoption of telemedicine and telehealth is still nascent in many sub-Saharan Africa countries. Therefore, this study reflects on progress made towards the use of telemedicine, virtual health care services, challenges encountered, and proffers ways to address them. We conducted a systematic literature review to synthesise literature on telemedicine in sub-Saharan Africa. The study revealed that telemedicine provides unprecedented benefits such as improving efficiency, effective utilization of healthcare resources, forward triaging, prevention of medical personnel infection, aiding medical students' clinical observation and participation, and assurance of social support for patients. However, the absence of policy on virtual care and political will, cost of sustenance of virtual health care services, inadequate funding, technological and infrastructural barriers, patient and healthcare personnel bias on virtual care and cultural barriers are identified as limiting factors to the adoption of virtual health care in many African health systems. To alleviate some of these barriers, we recommend the development of robust policies and frameworks for virtual health care, the inclusion of virtual care in the medical school curriculum, supporting virtual care research and development, increasing health funding, removing monopolisation of telecommunication services, developing of virtual health solutions that address eccentricities of African health systems.