Reply To: Discussion Forum 1

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Today, rehabilitation is considered an integral part of Universal Health Coverage services. Rehabilitative services are essential to ensuring the population improves their quality of life. Increasing access to rehabilitation through telerehabilitation services fits well with the Kenyan rehabilitation and assistive technology strategy of 2022-26. There a huge unmet need for rehabilitation for especially people who reside in the hard -to -reach areas and the Kenyan government has a shortage of rehabilitation personnel to serve this need. The rehabilitation personnel have limited skills and knowledge on telerehabilitation and this can be explored and addressed. Although most Kenyan use a mobile phone, quite a number do not have smart phones and some areas have poor connectivity of electricity. However, the intervention of telerehabilitation is a grant idea.
Culturally, there are no limitations in use of mobile phones, though as mentioned, most populace do not have a smart phone and use of such devices may be limiting due to low literacy levels. Capacity building needs to be conducted if the community welcome the idea of the telerehabilitation intervention.
To enhance the acceptability of the telerehabilitation intervention, I will engage policy makers, stakeholders and right holders in sensitization meetings, so as that an informed decision is made and way forward arrived at. I will consult several data sources to identify the need for tele rehabilitation, consult the rehabilitation teams about their expertise in this field and where necessary plan for training of staff. AS a team, we shall come up with a detailed telerehabilitation program with a monitoring and evaluation plan.