Application of Telemedicine in the Provision of Healthcare in Nigeria: An Insight from COVID-19

Abstract

Background: In recent times, telemedicine has received wide acceptance in global healthcare as a result of its tremendous potential in solving major healthcare concerns. However, despite the proven benefits of telemedicine and the growing applications in developed countries, Nigeria has failed to fully use this tool in the provision of healthcare in the country. Objectives: To examine the potentials of telemedicine as an alternative option for delivering quality healthcare services in Nigeria, the challenges hindering the utilization, and ways to overcome these challenges. Methods: Review of evidences was carried out on papers sourced from Google Scholar and PubMed databases. The key terms used for the search include "telemedicine", "information technology", "treatment", "Nigeria", "COVID-19", "virtual", and "health care". Papers were critically assessed for intellectual content, and those that did not meet the inclusion criteria or were extraneous to the study's focus were eliminated. A review of related evidence was conducted after data was extracted from selected papers. Results: Telemedicine has the potential to improve healthcare delivery, access, and efficiency. However, the underutilization of telemedicine in Nigeria has been identified to be as a result of some considerable factors which include the absence of a policy on virtual care, insufficient funding, high cost of maintaining virtual health care services, and technological and infrastructural constraints. Conclusions: As a result of the aforementioned, the imbalanced implementation of telemedicine systems in the provision of healthcare in Nigeria necessitates immediate stakeholder attention to establish supporting legislation and assure the availability of suitable infrastructure and services. Other research-based proposals include including virtual care training in school curricula and funding telemedicine research and development in the country.