Application of Telemedicine for Healthcare Delivery in Nigeria

Abstract

: The study explores the application of telemedicine in healthcare delivery in Nigeria, the perception of medical practitioners, and its application in healthcare service delivery to the nation. An architectural framework was designed to depict the application of healthcare delivery via telemedicine. A questionnaire was set up to check the views of medical practitioners regarding the application of telemedicine in healthcare delivery. Over 100 questionnaires were given out to Medical practitioners, Patients, ICT providers, and Healthcare professionals who are policymakers. 95 questionnaires were returned and the remaining 5 could not be accounted for by the respondents. An evaluation was conducted on the collated data to check the ease of usage, Degree of relevance, and Reliability index of the application of telemedicine to evaluation performance metrics. 87.37% of the respondents preferred the application of telemedicine in healthcare delivery in terms of patient health management and satisfaction improvement. 12.63% of others preferred face-to-face opinions in terms of practice satisfaction to patients, Ease of use, Equipment setup expenses, Technical reliability, Time duration, Trust among the professionals, Diagnostic accuracy, and Patient convenience. The SRI, SDR, and SEU results obtained from the responses are 3.33, 3.02, and 2.65 respectively. The hypothesis derivative crouch coefficient ranges between 0.71 and 0.80 based on the validity and reliability of the application of telemedicine in healthcare delivery. Most medical practitioners were overwhelmed and supported the application of telemedicine and its application in healthcare practice. This study shows that medical practitioners are ready and prepared to accept telemedicine applications to improve healthcare delivery in Nigeria.