"Slow and steady wins the race" : a case study on infrastructural development of telemedicine services at Dhulikhel Hospital, Nepal

Abstract

The use of ICT in the medical field has given rise to a new dimension so called telemedicine. Telemedicine is not a new concept, but the level of use differs between the developed and the developing countries, because of the limited infrastructural development and high expenses of technology in the later case. Though it is certain that using ICT in healthcare will improve health status of the nation, answers to the questions like which technology to choose; and what strategy to follow in order to achieve maximum benefit from minimum investment is still under consideration for developing countries. This study was carried out at Dhulikhel Hospital to explore the infrastructural development of telemedicine, its usage, benefits and users’ perspectives on the stability and sustainability of the services in future with context to hospitals in Nepal. A qualitative method with interpretive research approach was chosen for the study using informal discussions, observation and semi-structured interviews with open-ended questionnaires as data collection tools. The empirical findings have been generalized via Information Infrastructure (II) and Actor Network Theory (ANT) as theoretical framework. The findings from the study indicate that telemedicine is not simply technology; rather it is teamwork which requires good relationship between the users and good understanding of the setup. Furthermore, the study concludes that even a simple technology if implemented with proper vision and strategy can save many lives, and sustainability with telemedicine for developing countries can be achieved through slow and steady progression. Key words: Telemedicine, Nepal, sustainability, strategy, slow and steady progression.