Reverse innovation experiences from the RAFT e-learning and telemedicine network.

Abstract

Available infrastructure, resources, and provided services in low-and middle-income countries differ significantly from high-income countries. In healthcare for example, the uneven distribution of health professionals and lack of human resources are real barriers to equitable access to quality health care and services in most developing countries and particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. As available resources are lower and infrastructure is les developed many services and tools that have been developed for a high-income context cannot be used or are not sustainably affordable in a low-income environment, which led to the development of tools and services that are affordable and appropriate for this context. This ranges from concepts of blended learning, over tools for distance education and diagnostic to hardware like affordable and robust ultrasound machines and services like mobile payment. Many of these solutions and tools also have a great potential to be utilized in a different context and some of them have been deployed in high-income countries.