• J Nwando Olayiwola, Enekole Daisy Udenyi, Gbolahan Yusuf, Candy Magaña, Roshni Patel, Brittany Duck, Shahela Sajanlal, Anna Potapov, and Cyprian Kibuka.
• Department of Family Medicine, The Ohio State University, 2231 N. High Street, Second Floor, Columbus, OH 43210, USA. Electronic address: Nwando.Olayiwola@osumc.edu.
• J Natl Med Assoc. 2020 Feb 1; 112 (1): 97-102.

AbstractNigeria, Africa's most populous nation, is experiencing a dire challenge in meeting the specialty care access needs for its people, with extremely limited capacity to deliver subspecialty healthcare. Telemedicine/telehealth has been offered as a part of the solution to resolve health inequities, maldistribution and "brain drain" for health care services. In this preliminary communication, we assessed the impact of a telehealth innovation, subspecialty clinician-to-clinician electronic consultations (eConsult), on general practitioners (GPs) serving a diverse patient population in Nigeria. We found high levels of utilization of the eConsult platform by Nigerian physicians for a variety of cases and subspecialties. The most commonly used specialties were Obstetrics/Gynecology, Pediatric specialties and subspecialties, and Dermatology. Nigerian GPs spent more time generating and submitting their eConsults than American counterparts, but high levels of physician satisfaction and education from the eConsults. GPs reported the reduction in unnecessary services and improved care plans in the majority of cases, suggesting the tremendous potential for eConsults to build capacity for clinicians in nations where subspecialty care services are scarce.Copyright © 2020 National Medical Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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