Teleconsultation for diagnosis and care of burn injuries in the Western Cape: Evaluation of healthcare providers intention to use mHealth technology

Background: Burn care in resource-constrained settings represents a significant challenge. Mobile health (mHealth) could have useful advantages by providing timely expert advice. As part of a larger study on teleconsultation in burn care, a mobile application – the Vula App – was developed and tested in the Western Cape. This study gauges healthcare providers' intention to use this mHealth technology and factors influencing its adoption. Methods: 48 healthcare providers working in Emergency Centres of three health facilities answered a questionnaire immediately after being trained in the use of the app. The survey was based on the Technology Acceptance Model of Davis and included the constructs of ease of use, usefulness, design quality, impact on care, compatibility, and behavioural intention to adopt. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. Results: The mean age of participants was 29.5 years old and the male-to-female ratio was 1:2. 73.9% of respondents were doctors and the remainder nurses. 93.4% of them already owned and used smartphones, with 76% using them in medical practice. 93% of respondents thought the app was easy to use and 91.3% found it useful. 17.8% found it incompatible with their routine work. 84.8% of participants expressed their intention to adopt and use the system. 4.3% of participants rejected it and 10.9%remained undecided. Conclusion: The majority of participants already used smartphones and found the Vula app useful, easy to use, well designed, beneficial in burn care and compatible with their routine work. These factors led them to express the intention to use the app. This significantly predicts actual future use and is essential to the successful implementation of mHealth

African Federation for Emergency Medicine’s Francophone Working Group – May 2018 Report

Even though the African Federation for Emergency Medicine (AFEM) has been successfully developing emergency care in Africa for the past nine years, a considerable amount of potential AFEM members from the African-Francophone countries are not able to access AFEM resources. In response, an AFEM Francophone Working Group has been created to coordinate all existing and new initiatives to promote emergency care in African-Francophone countries. Keywords: Emergency care, Emergencies, French, Afric

The state of emergency care in Democratic Republic of Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the second largest country on the African continent with a population of over 70 million. It is also a major crossroad through Africa as it borders nine countries. Unfortunately, the DRC has experienced recurrent political and social instability throughout its history and active fighting is still prevalent today. At least two decades of conflict have devastated the civilian population and collapsed healthcare infrastructure. Life expectancy is low and government expenditure on health per capita remains one of the lowest in the world. Emergency Medicine has not been established as a specialty in the DRC. While the vast majority of hospitals have emergency rooms or salle des urgences, this designation has no agreed upon format and is rarely staffed by doctors or nurses trained in emergency care. Presenting complaints include general and obstetric surgical emergencies as well as respiratory and diarrhoeal illnesses. Most patients present late, in advanced stages of disease or with extreme morbidity, so mortality is high. Epidemics include HIV, cholera, measles, meningitis and other diarrhoeal and respiratory illnesses. Lack of training, lack of equipment and fee-for-service are cited as barriers to care. Pre-hospital care is also not an established specialty. New initiatives to improve emergency care include training Congolese physicians in emergency medicine residencies and medic ranger training within national parks