ArticleDigital health
Development of a telemedicine virtual clinic system for remote, rural, and underserved areas using user-centered design methods.
Article in Digital health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- User-Centered Virtual Clinic Services for Remote, Rural, and Underserved Sub-Saharan Africa: Development and Usability Study.JMIR human factors · 2026Article
- Benefits and outcomes of implementing virtual health clinics in remote and underserved areas: a scoping review.International journal of technology assessment in health care · 2025Article
- Integrating Artificial Intelligence Into Telemedicine: Evidence, Challenges, and Future Directions.Cureus · 2025Review
- Factors associated with the acceptance of telemedicine services in Dusit model prototype area.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Telemedicine Adoption and Prospects in Sub-Sahara Africa: A Systematic Review with a Focus on South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Virtual clinics are an emerging form of telemedicine which can positively impact healthcare accessibility in remote, rural, and underserved areas. However, a virtual clinic system for these contexts must be designed appropriately. The user-centered design method can be employed to develop an appropriate virtual clinic. Methods: The development of the virtual clinic used the user-centered design method. First, a situational analysis was conducted to understand the context of public primary healthcare facilities in South Africa. Literature review, observations, and interviews were conducted, which then informed system requirements. A virtual clinic system was then developed and its usability was evaluated with doctors and nurses in a lab setting using healthy participants acting as patients. Doctors and nurses completed system usability scale surveys and provided interview feedback. Results: The situational analysis revealed 10 key themes which were translated into a problem statement and 10 system requirements. A virtual clinic system was then developed based on these requirements. 5 doctors and 11 nurses were recruited to complete usability testing with the system. The system received an average of 80.6 scores (good to excellent) out of 100 on the system usability scale. Feedback from participants revealed key areas for improvement of the virtual clinic system, as well as opportunities for further implementation. Conclusion: The developed virtual clinic system demonstrated the application of the user-centered design method to telemedicine technologies for remote, rural, and underserved areas. The positive feedback received from the participants demonstrated the importance of the user-centered design method in developing technologies for enhancing service delivery in health systems. Further work will implement this system in real-world clinical settings.
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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.