An Assessment of Kenyan Level Four Hospitals Technological Infrastructure for Telemedicine Adoption

Abstract

There being most of Kenya’s Health professionals leaving the country for more lucrative jobs abroad which results in a severe shortage of medical workers across the country, this gets even worse when it comes to the level four hospitals. This consequently leads the level four hospitals to offer a limited treatment services. By adopting telemedicine, nurses who are employed by the hospital to nurse some of the patients can get assistance from a health care professional who can guide through video conferencing, moreover provides a platform that brings more treatment services to hospitals. Therefore the paper presents an assessment of the level four hospitals’ technological infrastructure for telemedicine adoption. Questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data and structured interviews were used to collect qualitative data. The quantitative data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistical techniques and results were presented using frequency tables, triangulation was used to back up the quantitative data from the qualitative data obtained. The study found out that the level four hospitals possesses just a part of the telemedicine technological infrastructure that can be used to adopt telemedicine at an infancy level. The study recommends that all the computers in the level four hospitals be equipped with a web camera, improve the internet bandwidth, consider installing VOIP software on their computers that are more reliable with better call quality and finally they should consider buying larger LCD screens.