The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a new support tool to help health systems in assessing and strengthening their telemedicine services, presenting a “comprehensive framework” addressing the “critical need” for accessible and effective telemedicine solutions.
According to the accompanying guidance, the support tool “facilitates the creation of high-quality telemedicine services across different levels of the health-care system and promotes collaboration and alignment amongst stakeholders towards developing resilient, patient-centric, and technologically advanced health-care systems”.
The tool is designed to support health system stakeholders to assess their current preparedness for implementing telemedicine services, to decide on their strategic vision for those services and how to monitor and assess them, and to consider the kinds of organisational changes, skills, and infrastructure required to implement them.
The matrix spans seven thematic domains, including individual; organisational and management; clinical; economic/financial; technological and infrastructure; public policy, regulatory and compliance; and monitoring, evaluation and optimisation. Each domain presents questions, descriptions and goals designed to help stakeholders understand where they are currently, and what the “gold standard” in any particular area is to achieve a mature telemedicine service. Users can also score their services across three levels of maturity.
Based on the outcomes as scored by the user, the tool then provides an overview of recommendations for next steps, allowing stakeholders to “gain detailed insights into the strengths of the telemedicine context, the weaknesses that could become barriers to the development of the telemedicine service, and the gaps that need to be addressed”.
Users are also directed to other WHO resources on telemedicine and implementation, including the Digital Implementation Investment Guide (DIIG), which offers practical guidance and support for country stakeholders to develop a “costed implementation plan” for digital health.
To learn more about the WHO support tool for telemedicine services, please click here.
Citation: Support tool to strengthen telemedicine: resource for assessment, strategy development, and strengthening of telemedicine services. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe; 2024. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
The WHO also recently launched its MeDevIS (Medical Devices Information System) platform, designed to offer information for health system stakeholders on medical devices to improve standardisation and support procurement decision-making. MeDevIS aims to overcome the challenges posed by “multiple, separate sources of information” produced by a range of international stakeholders, which make it “difficult for users to discern and utilise the most reliable data”.
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