Global health care – bridging the gap

Abstract

The World Health Assembly has acknowledged that telehealth could play an important role in providing access to health care for populations at risk worldwide. The Cambodia Teleconsultation Programme or Village Leap Programme connects those in need of health care, with those willing to share their medical expertise. Telemedicine clinics are run every other week at one of two villages in northern Cambodia. The nurse is responsible for gathering medical information and transmitting it by email to physicians in the USA, and to the Sihanouk Hospital of Hope in Phnom Phen. Poorer countries do not and are not likely to have national telemedicine programmes in the near future. But as the experience in Cambodia shows, grass-root telemedicine programmes can make a difference. The need is great and we can no longer wait for governments to lead. Thoughtfully implemented telemedicine programmes providing medical education, health care and screening may change the health of the world.