Digitalization of Medicine in Low- and Middle-Income Countries : Paradigm Changes in Healthcare and Biomedical Research

Abstract

This open access book provides a framework to describe why digitalization of the medical provision services is needed and which level of digitalization is possible in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). These countries have traditionally been economically and technologically not ready for digitalization, but with recent progress in digitized data acquisition, machine learning and computing infrastructure, healthcare applications are expanding into areas that were previously thought to be the exclusive domain of human experts. It is increasingly accepted that the transformation in healthcare would not be possible if it is not associated with technological innovations in communication, computing, and analytical processing of biological samples. However, this need and development is quite different to what has been experienced in high-income countries, as by definition resource-restricted settings have to navigate through a greater number of competing interests and needs, and as such the context into which digital health needs to be adopted and operate varies greatly. For instance, LMIC healthcare finds itself under a twin pressure of traditional healthcare pressures (such as infectious diseases outbreaks) and a growing elderly population with complex comorbidities, and both these aspects needs to be addressed simultaneously. Digitalization of Medicine in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Paradigm Changes in Healthcare and Biomedical Research provides in-depth understanding of the root causes for the observed differences in digital healthcare implementation in LMICs. Creating a strong foundation of the current trends and perspectives of digital healthcare in general, readers of this book are able to gain an informative account of how digital healthcare has been adapted to the different LMIC contexts in order to create demonstrable and impactful success stories.