African Telenursing: What is It and What's Special about It?

Abstract

Telenursing is well established in developed nations. Pilot telenursing schemes have been introduced in South Africa and elsewhere in the continent and, where justified, slowly expanded to allow maximum benefit from this modality of care. However systems, equipment and procedures which may be successful in the developed world are usually inappropriate for direct, unmodified transfer to developing countries. The appropriate changes to telenursing application for African needs and progress already made in African telenursing will be described, but currently there is little quantitiative data available.