Social Networking Sites an Enabler for Implementation for Telemedicine in Developing Countries

Abstract

Social Networking Sites (SNS) are pages or sites through which individuals or a group of individual shares and communicate over issues relating to a variety of topics. It plays an important role that is significant in the fields of agriculture, business, banking and tourism, especially in transfer information, search, advertising and interaction among the customers. Telemedicine is provision and support of health care with the use of Information Communication Technology. It does not limit its services to communication between doctors and nurses but also in diagnosis, consultations monitoring and surgical services. It enables citizens irrespective of their location from medical services to access and seek medical attention without moving from a remote area to an urban area with these services. A good number of developed countries like the United States of America and the United Kingdom have implemented telemedicine and the results can be felt. In some developing countries, implementation has been undertaken but with challenges involved. For instance, countries like Kenya and Bangladesh are working tirelessly to implement telemedicine to improve the provision of affordable healthcare services to its people. Social Networking Sites are the most effective means of online communication that has been integrated in political, social and economic life of users. This study is a result of literature review evaluation to establish role of social networking sites in implementation of Telemedicine in developing countries.