ArticleJournal of global health2018
Seven years of telemedicine in Médecins Sans Frontières demonstrate that offering direct specialist expertise in the frontline brings clinical and educational value.
Article in Journal of global health, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Electronic consultations (E-consults) and their outcomes: a systematic review.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2020Pooled it
- Chest X-Ray-Based Telemedicine Platform for Pediatric Tuberculosis Diagnosis in Low-Resource Settings: Development and Validation Study.JMIR pediatrics and parenting · 2024Article
- Hospital-Level Implementation Barriers, Facilitators, and Willingness to Use a New Regional Disaster Teleconsultation System: Cross-Sectional Survey Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2023Article
- Feasibility and Acceptability of a Model Disaster Teleconsultation System for Regional Disaster Health Response.Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association · 2023Article
- Lessons Learned from Natural Disasters around Digital Health Technologies and Delivering Quality Healthcare.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Review
- Identifying developments over a decade in the digital health and telemedicine landscape in the UK using quantitative text mining.Frontiers in digital health · 2023Article
- Telemedicine along the cascade of care for substance use disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2023Review
- Telemedicine interventions in six conflict-affected countries in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean region: a systematic review.Conflict and health · 2022Review
- Shaping the Screening, Behavioral Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) Model for Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder in the COVID-19 Era.Mayo Clinic proceedings · 2022Article
- A scoping review of the use of e-learning and e-consultation for healthcare workers in low- and middle-income countries and their potential complementarity.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2022Article
- The telehealth advantage: Supporting humanitarian disasters with remote solutions.American journal of disaster medicine · 2022Article
- Telehealth in emergency medicine: A consensus conference to map the intersection of telehealth and emergency medicine.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2021Article
- Taking Paediatrics Abroad: Working with low- and middle-income countries in a global pandemic.Journal of paediatrics and child health · 2021Article
- eHealth for service delivery in conflict: a narrative review of the application of eHealth technologies in contemporary conflict settings.Health policy and planning · 2021Review
- Cost-Effectiveness of Telemedicine in Asia: A Scoping Review.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2021Article
- Referral Activity in Three Store-and-Forward Networks during the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic.International journal of telemedicine and applications · 2021Article
- International Teledermatology Review.Current dermatology reports · 2021Review
- The Role of Telemental Health, Tele-consultation, and Tele-supervision in Post-disaster and Low-resource Settings.Current psychiatry reports · 2020Review
- "The post-COVID era": challenges in the treatment of substance use disorder (SUD) after the pandemic.BMC medicine · 2020Article
- Telemedicine strategy of the European Reference Network ITHACA for the diagnosis and management of patients with rare developmental disorders.Orphanet journal of rare diseases · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMédecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a medical humanitarian organization, began using store-and-forward telemedicine in 2010. The aim of the present study was to describe the experience of developing a telemedicine service in low-resource settings.
methodsWe studied the MSF telemedicine service during the period from 1st July 2010 until 30th June 2017. There were three consecutive phases in the development of the service, which we compared. We also examined the results of a quality assurance program which began in 2013.
resultsDuring the study period, a total of 5646 telemedicine cases were submitted. The workload increased steadily, and the median referral rate rose from 2 to 18 cases per week. The number of hospitals submitting cases and the number of cases per hospital also increased, as did the case complexity. Despite the increased workload, the allocation time reduced from 0.9 to 0.2 hours, and the median time to answer a case decreased from 20 to 5 hours. The quality assurance scores were stable. User feedback was generally positive and more than 90% of referrers who provided a progress report about their case stated that it had been sent to an appropriate specialist, that the response was sufficiently quick and that the teleconsultation provided an educational benefit. Referrers noted a positive impact of the system on patient outcome in 39% of cases.
conclusionsThe quality of the telemedicine service was maintained despite rising caseloads. The study showed that offering direct specialist expertise in low-resource settings improved the management of patients and provided additional educational value to the field physicians, thus bringing further benefits to other patients.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.