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Telemedicine is an important aspect of healthcare services amid COVID‐19 outbreak: Its barriers in Bangladesh and strategies to overcome
Author(s) -
Chowdhury Saifur Rahman,
Sunna Tachlima Chowdhury,
Ahmed Shakil
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the international journal of health planning and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1099-1751
pISSN - 0749-6753
DOI - 10.1002/hpm.3064
Subject(s) - telemedicine , covid-19 , pandemic , outbreak , telehealth , business , developing country , service (business) , health care , healthcare service , medical emergency , service delivery framework , medicine , economic growth , internet privacy , disease , virology , computer science , marketing , infectious disease (medical specialty) , economics , pathology
The current pandemic of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID‐19) has been a global concern since early 2020, where the number of COVID‐19 cases is also on a rapid surge in Bangladesh with the report of a total of 276,549 cases after the detection of the first three cases in this country on 8 March 2020. The COVID‐19 pandemic has made a seismic shift in the healthcare delivery system, where physician offices have accelerated digital health solutions at record speed, putting telemedicine (i.e., telehealth) at centre stage. Amid the severely contagious COVID‐19, telemedicine has moved from being an optional service to an essential one. As the developing country, there are some barriers to get evenly distributed advantages of this approach due to the digital divides and disparities. In this commentary, we have described the importance of telemedicine service amid the outbreak of COVID‐19 in Bangladesh, the barriers and challenges that the country is facing to implement this approach and the strategies to overcome these barriers in this developing country.