Cuba could develop telemedicine, expert affirms

Cuba has the capacity to develop telemedicine and receive income from it, especially now that its healthcare system's prestige has grown by helping to confront COVID-19 in dozens of nations, Olga Stolik Lipszyc, research professor at the International Economic Research Center (CIEI by its Spanish acronym), said in Havana.

The specialist told the Cuban News Agency that although the Caribbean island was one of the first countries to suggest joining the advances in telecommunications and their innovative applications to medicine, it has also been one of the most recent to implement it, for different reasons.

 But it is true that from here many patients with chronic diseases that hinder them from traveling or people without medical coverage could be treated, the expert added.

Telemedicine would be one of the branches that can contribute a great deal to service exports, especially since it does not involve mobility of persons, the necessary human potential is available and even new marketing formulas can be implemented; all that is needed is to improve the technology, Stolik Lipszyc continued.

In her opinion, there are many specialized services very expensive at the international level that the country can assume, since it has the right personnel, well trained; even the same isolation places created for tourism during the post-COVID-19 stage, such as the Largo, Coco and Santa Maria keys, with small investments could be used to provide them.

Cuba could set up hospitals and clinics in countries where there is no such coverage and where private medicine is too competitive, too expensive, and not within the reach of most people, the professor concluded.