Rural Community Empowered to use ICT for Remote Medical Consultation

Remote Medical Consultation is a viable option to get the benefits to most vulnerable groups, but among the developing countries, there are many obstacles to overcome to make the remote medical consultation dream reality. Connectivity, Bandwidth, Software cost, are some of technical barrier, more than these change management has been become most difficult things to overcome as human and social fence.

e-Society Programme, ICTA Agency of Sri Lanka has showcased successes full two pilot project on remote medical consultation bringing the ICT benefits to most vulnerable groups in Sri Lanka to make people’s life easier.



ViduSuwa, designed to make specialized healthcare services available in rural areas by connecting a medical Consultant (whom would be geographically located in a place of his choice) with a patient in a rural area assisted by a doctor. The solution is comprised of a Business Model, an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) System along with Mobile Communication System and a Change Management Model. Moreover, the solution is designed and developed in a way it can be even deployed in a mobile vehicle where the vehicle can be used to reach the people who have no access to specialized consultancies.

The Web based EMR system along with a conferencing tool provides real time access to the patient, patient details, patient history, investigations for the Consultant. Mobile Communication model is developed to utilize the existing mobile infrastructure and technologies to provide an effective communication channel between the patient and medical authorities. In order to implement the system in practical, certain modifications and additions need to be managed in the health context especially in familiarizing the Health Officers in the system and creating confidence among patients to use the services of the system. The Change Management component addresses this aspect.

The pilot project for this effort was implemented at the Base Hospital, Marawila and District Hospital, Dankotuwa in the form of an action research with a participatory approach with the use of open source technologies and existing infrastructure under the GP License. After the successful implementation of ViduSuwa an approximate Cost (89.5%), Time (67.6%) and Travel Distance (70%) decline was identified in patients receiving specialized health care services through the system.

ViduSuwa Project was conceptualized by Dr. Keith R. P. Chapman, Consultant General and Laparoscopic Surgeon at the District General Hospital, Chilaw & Dr. Shiromi M. K. D. Arunatileka, University of Colombo School of Computing. The Project was funded by Information Communication Technology agency of Sri Lanka, e-Socety Programme under the Partnership Assistance Programme Project. ICT Agency of Sri Lanka and UCSC are looking for a potential organization and the communities to replicate the concept in most rural area especially in North and East.

Shriyananda Rathnayake, Source- Shiromi Arunatileka, for more information - http://www.vidusuwa.com,