Stakeholders Analysis of Ethiopian Telemedicine Projects, the case of Black Lion Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The deployment of core health care service delivery applications such as Telemedicine presents various challenges in low income countries. The challenges range from technical problems to complex politico-economic, managerial, and behavioral issues. We conducted a case study (Yin, 2009) to understand the impact of various stakeholders on the current telemedicine projects at the Black Lion Teaching Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Preliminary findings reveal an absence of mechanisms for balancing varying interests of multiple stakeholders involved in the Telemedicine projects. The study has both practical and theoretical contributions. First, the study revealed practical implications for Telemedicine projects in the study area, and may be extended to other low income countries in Africa and elsewhere. Second, use of stakeholders’ theory was found to offer a robust and sound analysis and explanatory lens for explaining the varying interests among stakeholder groups and the effect of these phenomena on telemedicine use.