AFRICA TELE-DERMATOLOGY PROJECT

Hey! CHECK HERE! Best Forex taders worldwide, give you advice for FREE to buy or sell. ZuluTrade converts this advice to a live trade in your broker account automatically, again for FREE! Unique service to ensure that you make money in foreign currency trading.

The purpose Africa Tele-dermatology Project is to establish a virtual collaboration between African partners, the USA and Austria. A unique online archive of tropical skin conditions will also emerge which should serve as an internet source of educational material for training and updating of medical specialists and health personnel. A secondary aim of the project is to establish and secure an active channel and platform for dermatological research collaboration. The African partners currently involved are :-Uganda, Botswana, Malawi, Swaziland, Burkina Faso and Lesotho. The project applies Tele-medicine to fulfill its objectives.

Telemedicine utilizes modern telecommunication technology to provide medical services at a distance by connecting two or several medical centers and enabling exchange of expert medical information. Telemedicine has therefore a potential to offer developing countries qualitative and quantitative improvements in medical care.

The inherent visual nature of dermatology makes Tele-dermatology easily applicable to virtual medicine. African Tele-dermatology has been created to provide dermatology support to all physicians, dermatologists, and health care workers in hospitals and clinics throughout Africa. This support is provided through Tele-dermatology consultation services, discussion pertaining to diagnosis and management of patients with skin diseases, links to educational resources and access to dermatologic curriculum created specifically for African sites.

African developing countries have only a very limited number of qualified dermatologists. Tele-dermatology has therefore, the potential to offer a prompt channel for long distance consultation and consequently provide means of improving medical care of skin diseases.

The scope of this project is the integration of the various aspects of Tele-dermatology and Tele-dermatopathology using best practice model, creating an innovation – and investment – friendly surrounding for the broad – scaled implementation of Tele-medical applications in Africa.

This project has been funded by the Commission for Development Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences, ( originally Uganda – Austria Project) and the American Academy of Dermatology.

Project and Site Coordinators:-
Steven Kaddu, M.B. Ch.B, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Dermatology, Medical University of Graz, Austria.
Carrie Kovarik, MD, Assistant Professor, Dermatology, and Dermatopathology, University of Pennsylvania, Department of Dermatology, USA.



Project Advisors:-
Hon Pak, MD Chief- Information Technology Engineering Division, Tele-medicine & Advanced Technology Research Center, U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command.
H. Peter Soyer, MD, FACO Chair 1 Dermatology Group School of Medicine – the University of Queensland Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, QLD4102, Australia.

Project Partners:-
Rainer Hofmann-Wellenhof, MD – Associate Professor, Department Dermatology, Medical University of Graz.
Gerald Gabler, Msc. Department of IT and Telecommunication, Graz University Clinics and General Hospital Graz, Austria.
Cesare Massone, MD Associate Professor, Department of Dermatology, Medical University of Graz.
Grace K. Mulyowa, MB.Ch.B Head of Dermatology, Mbarara University, Faculty of Medicine, Mbarara, Uganda.
Adeodata Kekitiinwa, MB.Ch.B, M.Med, Associate Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, Children’s Foundation – Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda.
Fred Kambugu, MB.Ch.B, M.Med, Head, Department of Dermatology, Makerere University, Faculty of Medicine, Kampala, Uganda.

Collaborating Institutions:-
University of Pennsylvania – Department of Dermatology, Philadelphia, USA.
University of Graz, Department of Dermatology, Austria.
Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda.
University of Botswana.
Makerere University, Uganda.
Penn-Botswana Program, Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative (BIPAI)
The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.