Forthcoming · Perspective · 8 min
EkoTelemed at five — lessons from scaling state telemedicine.
What worked, what didn’t, and why state-owned digital health infrastructure needs to outlive the politicians who launch it.
EkoTelemed launched in Lagos during the COVID-19 pandemic — Nigeria’s first state-owned telemedicine platform. Five years on, what began as an emergency response has evolved into the ILERA EKO Telemedicine Plan, with Virtual Health Booths across Lagos State and a body of operational learning that other states are beginning to draw on.
This perspective is being written. It is meant as a working post-mortem-plus-forward-plan: what the platform did right, where it bent, and what it suggests for any state intending to put telemedicine at the centre of its public health infrastructure.
What the piece will cover
- · The pandemic-era launch and the constraints it operated under.
- · What the operational data has shown.
- · Virtual Health Booths — making digital health physical.
- · The procurement realities of public-sector tech.
- · Why state-owned digital health infrastructure needs to outlive the politicians who launch it.
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