As the UK’s leading telemedicine charity for primary health care, the Virtual Doctors turns a smartphone app into a lifeline for countless vulnerable people.
Every day over 230 NHS doctors come in from a busy shift, log onto the Virtual Doctors app and volunteer to improve the lives of people in rural Africa.
The Virtual Doctors use a Smartphone App to connect isolated health centres in rural Zambia and Malawi with volunteer doctors, based predominantly in the UK.
The volunteer doctors offer advice to diagnose conditions, and to manage and treat patients. This assists and empowers local health workers, helps reduce unnecessary hospital referrals, and ultimately saves lives.
How is it done?
We provide a smart phone, loaded with our specially written telemedicine app, to Clinical Officers working in remote clinics. When a patient with a complex or unusual condition appears, the Clinical Officer creates a patient file with examination notes and photos. This is uploaded to the cloud. A doctor in the UK reviews it and offers diagnostic and treatment advice. Watch here.
We believe that peoples lives should not be shorter because of a lack of health care and information that is available in another part of the world. You can make a difference:
We rely 100% on charitable donations to fund our work and receive no government grants or funding. We are in desperate need of funding to keep the charity running to build on over a decade's work within Zambia
Why don't they go to hospital?
These are places where people regularly walk or cycle long distances to their nearest clinic or referral hospital, and even then often receive inadequate treatment or diagnosis due to the centre being under-resourced.
Our simple telemedicine software, designed with rural communities in mind, connects remote health care workers, with a panel of volunteer doctors who give diagnosis and treatment advice on complex cases.
As a result, patients are diagnosed more quickly and more often treated in their communities. If the referral cannot be helped, our service enables the CO to stabilise the patient before their journey to hospital and surgery.
Check out our latest case from the field! Read here
Through our work we endeavour to be part of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 3