Frost & Sullivan: Is Africa Ready for eHealth?

Frost & Sullivan: Is Africa Ready for eHealth? PR Newswire CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Nov. 29, 2012 - Dissecting the outcomes of eHealth projects and finance of project implementation CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Nov. 29, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The African eHealth Economics Forum, Cape Town, which forms part of The Global Health Economics Series, was held recently at the One & Only Hotel. The forum focused on three major elements of eHealth projects; assessment of eHealth projects, financial aspects of project implementation and economics of mobile health. One of the biggest challenges of eHealth project implementation is the complexity of tracking success of pilot projects and presenting benefits to key stakeholders and key healthcare providers. Healthcare delivery is a complex process and eHealth interventions have been cited to have been lost in this complexity. "Although many African countries have formally adopted eHealth policies, very scant progress has been made in terms of project implementation," noted Frost & Sullivan's Healthcare Industry Analyst Tionotenda Sachikonye. "In the past five years, a significant majority of eHealth and telemedicine projects in Africa have failed to take off, and 80% of the active projects are still at the pre-implementation/trial stage, many years after project initiation. South Africa alone has spent between R4-R6 billion on eHealth pilot projects.