Rodney Taylor | Managing Director | Guardian Eye | mail me |
In the context of a highly charged and challenging environment for doctors in South Africa, telemedicine is emerging as an attractive alternative route for young doctors seeking a sustainable career.
Taking it a step further, offering telemedicine as a managed service to businesses not only improves employer and employee experience but also ensures a stable work environment for doctors.
It’s a challenging environment out there at the moment for doctors. Many, who can, are leaving for other countries such as Canada, and if they aren’t currently in the process of moving, many are watching developments closely as they seek to protect their careers. However, going to Canada is not easy and an expensive exercise.
An alternative career option for the country’s doctors
On the other hand, there are many doctors who, once they finish their community service, can’t find work in the private sector, and as Health Minister Joe Phaahla has said this year, finding budget for doctors’ salaries in the public sector is proving to be a challenge.
Starting a practice is out of reach for many as it involves bank loans, leases, staff hire, marketing, expensive health insurance and much more. Telemedicine as a managed service provides an alternative, sustainable and attractive career option for the country’s doctors.
While many telemedicine providers around the world and in South Africa tend to be designed around a platform model, where doctors – often those with a few hours a day to spare – log on remotely when and if they are available, a managed service requires its doctors and medical professionals to work on premise in Johannesburg. This is important when offering a fully managed service to businesses.
Much like any other service, it is saying to businesses that the doctors are not only well-trained to be adept at virtual consultations, but are managed correctly to ensure efficient service delivery. For doctors, it provides an environment where they work alongside likeminded professionals in a positive and stable environment.
The democratisation of quality medical access
When doctors apply to work at a managed service provider, the process involves more than just signing up to a platform. We have an academy to train young professionals to become effective virtual doctors.
It has become clear that small, independent pharmacies often struggle to keep the lights on in the current challenging situations.
Now, it can be anywhere in the country… if a telemedicine platform services a large manufacturer, for example, with thousands of employees, it channels scripts to independent pharmacies in that area. And, through scale, the pharmacies can keep the average cost of scripted medicine down ensuring businesses and their employees get value for money. This means that much like other industries where technology has disrupted the status quo, the point is not just technology for technology’s sake, but to ensure that key challenges up and down the supply chain are addressed.
Essentially, what this technology has enabled is the democratisation of quality medical access, no matter where you are in the country.
