Who are the Virtual Doctors?
We are a UK-based charity operating in Zambia & Malawi. We use a simple Smartphone App to connect rural health centres, where there no doctors, with over 230 volunteer Doctors, based predominantly in the UK.
Who are the Virtual Doctors?
We are the USA fundraising arm of the Virtual Doctors, a UK & Zambia based charity operating a telemedicine service for primary health in Zambia & Malawi. We use a simple Smartphone App to connect clinicians in rural health centres, where there no doctors, with over 200 volunteer Doctors, based predominantly in the UK, who support them with diagnosis & treatment advice for complex patient cases.
Become a volunteer doctor
Our volunteer doctors offer advice to diagnose conditions, treat patients and prescribe medicine. This assists and empowers rural health workers, and even helps saves lives. The App also reduces the number of hospital referrals that would incur long, arduous journeys over hundred of kilometres and unmanageable expense for very poor patients.
Our mission
- Help rural health workers treat more patients in their own communities, supporting a reduction in morbidity and mortality rates
- Reduce unnecessary referrals to distant & hard to reach hospitals
- Improve the skills and knowledge of rural health workers, so that the next time a complex patient case presents, they know how to deal with it
Our aim
To help improve the local primary healthcare in some of the most remote and impoverished areas of sub-Saharan Africa. We believe this model could be adopted across Africa, making a significant impact on healthcare throughout the region and beyond. We also plan to create a parallel service as a pilot to support primary health care in marginalised rural communities in the USA.
The Model
Our highly accessible and user-friendly software was built specifically for use in low resource settings in rural Africa with direct input on the design process from the users themselves as well as their peers and superiors at all levels throughout the government health service in Zambia (Ministry of Health). The telemedicine system is in the form of an App loaded onto a Smartphone. This links health workers in rural clinics to remote based volunteer doctors. We provide training from the outset as well as sustained medical and technical support, education, feedback and monitoring & evaluation.
Our impact
We have equipped healthcare workers in more than 290 health facilities right across Zambia and 21 health facilities in Malawi with our telemedicine App-loaded Smartphones. More are being set up in a rolling expansion programme funded entirely through the generosity of our supporters. These facilities combined serve as many as 4 million people with no direct access to a qualified doctor. Recent survey results show that using the Virtual Doctors service:
- Improved a patient’s symptoms in 92% of cases
- Prevented the need for a hospital referral in 78% of cases
- Provided an educational benefit in 97% of cases
Our Status
We have the appropriate operating Memorandum of Understanding/s with the Zambian & Malawian Ministries of Health. The Virtual Doctors USA governance is overseen by an active Board of Trustees as well as trustees in the UK. In Zambia we have in-country setting as a charitable company with local trustees and 3 full-time Zambian staff members and two interns.
Our Resourcing
100% of our funding currently comes via the generosity of the general public. Lack of funding can prove a barrier to working so we are continually seeking new support. We currently have very small teams to keep overhead costs low. This comprises one part time Executive Director and support consultant in the USA, one part time Executive Director & part time administrator in the UK and a team of 3 full time staff and 2 interns in Zambia. Much of our core operation is supported by over 200 volunteers.
the Virtual Doctors receives no government funding whatsoever and all our money comes from the amazing support of our donors, which allows us:
- To provide an emergency lifeline in critical healthcare situations, in areas where there are no doctors
- To help health workers treat more patients in their own communities.
- To prevent unnecessary and potentially fatal referrals to distant hospitals.
- To improve the skills and knowledge of rural health workers (so that they can deal with complex patient cases the next time they present).
Thanks to people like you, our service has handled over 12,000 patient cases to date, many of them life saving.
Why Choose Us
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