Barriers to Development of Telemedicine in Developing Countries

Affordability, accessibility, availability, and quality of healthcare services have always been a burning issue for the mankind. The issue of health care is always crucial for the governments and countries irrespective of their financial status. Continuous efforts are being made by policy makers, administrators, and researchers to provide quality health care to the people at the cost that they can afford. Developed countries have adopted many alternative tools and technologies to leverage the supply of good health care but quality and cost of health care are still big issues in these countries. Developing countries are far behind in adopting technology to reduce the cost and improve the quality of health care. Telemedicine has emerged as a new hope to remove the bottlenecks in the healthcare seeking. Developing countries have adopted telemedicine technology in a hurry without proper planning and strategy. Despite more than two decades of adapting telemedicine, developing countries have not achieved any significant success in reducing the cost of care or improving the access of care. This chapter has tried to explore the various barriers to the development of telemedicine in developing countries. Proper enlisting and detailing of these barriers will definitely help governments to understand the loopholes and bottlenecks in the implementation of telemedicine and help them to develop appropriate solution.