Telemedicine in KwaZulu-Natal: From failure to cautious optimism

Abstract

Following unsuccessful attempts to develop a national telemedicine programme in South Africa, a videoconference-based, postgraduate tele-education service was developed in KwaZulu-Natal (KZ-N). This started in 2001; in 2006, 1 7 academic disciplines offered 765 h of multipoint programming to 23,125 participants. There is growing interest from other medical schools in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa to participate in shared postgraduate tele-education. Pilot telemedicine projects in teledermatology (real-time and store-and-forward) and in tele-ophthalmology (store-and-forward) are reaching maturity. A substantial proportion of patients have been saved a journey to Durban. New telemedicine projects are starting. After a disappointing start, there is cautious optimism that telemedicine and tele-education will develop further in KZ-N.

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