Telemedicine: Providing Specialized Care to Remote Communities

The geographical nature of the Philippines with 7,107 islands and over 1,400 municipalities makes health care delivery in the country challenging. While the deployment of Doctors-to-the-Barrios (DttB) to Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDA) have helped ease this problem, a fraction of medical cases that DttBs attend to in their health units still require the expertise of clinical specialists who hardly reach these areas.

These problems are slowly addressed by telemedicine. As defined by the World Medical Association, “Telemedicine is the practice of medicine over a distance, in which interventions, diagnostic and treatment decisions and recommendations are based on data, documents and other information transmitted through telecommunication system.” With the aid of ICTs, (Information and Communications Technology), DttBs in the country are connected with clinical specialist which allows medical referrals 24/7, more resources efficiently used and most importantly, more lives saved.

Since 2007, the University of the Philippines Manila National Telehealth Center (UPM-NTHC) has been supporting Doctors to the Barrios (DTTBs) and Municipal Health Officers (MHOs) through the use of eMail and SMS based Telemedicine.