Remote clinical support by telephone for rural district hospital medical officers in the Eastern Cape

Abstract

Background: Rural district hospitals are frequently understaffed and inexperienced medical officers must make clinical decisions with no supervision. Medical officers from rural district hospitals in the Eastern Cape attending a two-week ‘in-reach’ anaesthesia training course at the Port Elizabeth academic complex were provided with subsequent telephonic support that enabled them to contact an experienced anaesthetist in the urban centre with clinical problems for advice. This survey was to determine user perceptions of the utility and effectiveness of the telephonic support system.