With ICT friendly policy makers, digitalised and connected hospitals Rwanda is ready to use telehealth for cervical cancer screening and care. This is one of the main findings from the needs assesment study ordered by Spider as part of the project ”Telehealth for Cervical Cancer Screening and Care”.
The study is based on focus group interviews with different potential stakeholders: policy makers, health care workers and women diagnosed with cervical cancer in Rwanda. Participants came from several settings, covering both urban areas and more remote places.
Key findings include:
- Support for telehealth is overwhelming. Participants believe there is room for telehealth to enhance knowledge sharing, enable remote health care and improve health education.
- The Rwandan health care system is ready for potential use of health care in all aspects of system readiness.
Some concerns raised by participants were:
- Confidentiality and data protection concerns
- The acceptability of telehealth solutions among both beneficiaries, service users and health care workers
- The actual cost of telehealth applications
Downloads
If you wish to read the full report it is available for download here. A brief summary of key findings is also available for download. The images below are clickable.
The study was performed by researchers from the Department of Computer and Systems Science, Stockholm university in cooperation with Urunanan DC and Dr Zuberi Muvunyi (the Director of Bushenge Provincial Referral Hospital), Dr Rulisa Stephen (Acting Dean of School of Medicine and Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rwanda) and Mr Joseph Ngenzi Lune (School of Public Health Sciences, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rwanda).
If you wish to know more about the project, a report from the needs assesment study in Zambia is available here.