A ground-breaking project by the University of the Western Cape and the Medical Research Council will employ Motorola's networking technology to take leading academics and experts into the heart of South Africa's remote communities.
With the World Health Organisation predicting that depression will be the biggest disease burden in developing countries in the year 2020, a project was launched today to demonstrate how technology can deliver psychology solutions to South Africa's poor and disparate communities.
Connecting universities with remote clinics through the latest in advanced network solutions that deliver voice, video and data integration, looks set to help bridge the mental health chasm facing remote communities that currently have no or rudimentary psychological services.
At the heart of the solution is a very basic concept - using video conferencing to connect doctors to rural clinics from their desks. Ease-of-use is paramount and the system will literally be as easy as using the telephone.
Driven by Motorola, the pilot will be based on the networking giant's multimedia networking solutions which will link a desktop computer running a video conferencing facility at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), to a computer at a primary health care clinic in Beaufort West in the Eastern Cape. The Medical Research Council will evaluate the project for effectiveness and viability. Other partners include Telkom and Sony.
The telepsychology project will focus on the training of trainers, the supervision of training groups, the supervision of psychological evaluations and other interventions. In crisis or extreme cases the link could be used for directly assisting these patients. Currently, disoriented persons in clinics are removed to a place of safety, in many cases the local police station, and remain there until a district surgeon, usually without specific psychology training, becomes available.
The Motorola multimedia network will be based on IP (Internet Protocol), the language used by computers to communicate to one another. The voice, video or data is broken up into 'packets' and transmitted back and forth. As these packets are individually addressed, IP tells the network how to read the packets and where to send them. This makes for a solution that is fast, cost effective and easy to use. Operating on an ISDN line, the solution is flexible and can easily grow from a one-to-one scenario to multiple linked sites.
Motorola Internet and Networking Group EMEA managing director, Paul Beaumont commented: "There is no doubt that multimedia is the next wave of technology to transform the way people work. There are real challenges in South Africa faced by both medical practitioners and users, and Motorola is delighted to driving a project that will assist in developing a meaningful service to South Africa's impoverished communities."
Although this technology has been employed successfully for telemedicine and telepsychology projects in developed countries, this is the first time it will be employed in South Africa for a developmental project.
"In South Africa, rural areas have a history of poorly developed mental health resources. This lack of resources is accompanied by a high incidence of social psychological problems such as substance abuse and dependance, domestic and interpersonal violence and so on," says Ashley van Niekerk, Director of the Psychology Resource Centre at the University of the Western Cape. "Telepsychology will make services accessible to communities who have previously not had access to mental health services."
"The project will have significant implications on driving down the costs of the delivery of vital community services. Sending a team of psychologists to a rural area runs into thousands of rands. If this project succeeds, training and services in remote areas could easily and cost-effectively be affected by literally switching on a computer," he says.
According to the Medical Research Council, this is an exciting project which may go a long way to delivering a solution to the inadequate services and geographic challenges which currently confound our mental health system.
Editors Note
Motorola Information
Motorola`s Internet and Networking Group is a leading supplier of network products and services, from complete solutions for wide area information networks and LAN internetworking to highly competitive individual products such as corporate modems, ISDN networking equipment and multiservice network access devices.
The company is part of Motorola Inc, the world`s leading providers of wireless communications, semiconductors and advanced electronic systems and services. Major equipment businesses include cellular telephone, two way radio, paging and data communications, personal communications, automotive, defence and space electronics and computers. Communication devices, computers and millions of consumer products are powered by Motorola semiconductors. Sales in 1997 were $29.8 billion. More information on Motorola`s networking division in EMEA can be found on the world wide web at www.mot.com/mims/isg/emea.
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