Telemedicine in developing countries; Case of Tunisia

Telemedicine and more largely e-health should be considered as one of the strategic components in the national health care system since this assists the delivery of equitable health-care and the accessibility of specific skills. Through telemedicine patients can get access to medical expertise that may not be able at the patient's site. Advanced technology such as informatics, medical imaging, robotics, voice activated machines, and remote controls have changed the hospital and operating room to accessible zones in all parts of the world and distance has become meaningless in modern times. Telemedicine networks contribute to the improvement of the medical care quality and to the cost effective use of medical resources. It have a strong impact in developing countries since it allows remote parts to get access to medical care and create local knowledge. The Tunisian experience in Telemedicine is significant and has begun on 90 by scientific meetings with local and international links between researchers. Numerous projects and significant networks have been established in order to set up links and connections between Tunisian hospitals and medical centers in one hand and between Tunisian and foreign hospitals in other hand. This article presents the advantages of Telemedicine and its necessity in developing countries. The Tunisian experience is then detailed and discussed.