A few minutes after finishing my previous post, I stumbled at one article citing the difficulties of physicians in the developing nations in taking advantage of the internet to improve health care delivery. To quote one response from this article in an EBM Journal.
All of this science sounds really good, doctor, but I practice in a small town where I see very poor patients. We don’t have computers and medical libraries, you know. In fact, we sometimes don’t even have electricity.
Admittingly, the solution to this “obstacle” far extend beyond health care policies alone. Majority of our patients don’t have internet connectivity yes, but physicians should get connected and get updates. Recent studies showed physicians beginning to harness (emails, journal searches) the internet’s potential. and online collaboration between physicians has improved the quality of care we give to our patients.Maybe we can harness those potentials now.
Other opportunities may come in too, like harnessing the powers of mobile connectivity in health since there are far more mobile phones penetratng our population than computers and internet.
My point is this; Our poor patients may have an excuse for not harnessing the powers of internet or web 2.0. but as physicians, we don’t have that excuse. We knew better and should strive to improve our health care delivery services. At least, in my opinion, that’s how I put a mindset on harnessing the powers of web 2.0 for health.
