Establishing telepathology in Africa: Lessons from Botswana

Few reports of telepathology in Africa exist in the medical literature. With the strong need for improvement in health care infrastructure and personnel training in many African nations, telepathology provides a rapid and versatile tool to improve clinical care and foster educational and research opportunities. We describe the challenges faced in establishing robotic telepathology (RT) services at a government referral center in Botswana and reflect on conditions under which such initiatives may be most likely to succeed in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world.