India developed its own cloud-based platform to provide healthcare services during the pandemic, which has clocked a staggering 12 million consultations in the year since its launch.
The federal Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Tuesday revealed that the National Telemedicine Service – dubbed "eSanjeevani" – serves 90,000 people on a daily basis across the country, signalling its widespread use by patients and specialists.
eSanjeevani comprises two different platforms - the first one has been developed to let patients receive doctor's advice remotely, while another, used at the Ayushman Bharat Health, and Wellness centres (AB-HWC), facilitates doctor-to-doctor consultations.
AB-HWC, first implemented in the state of Andhra Pradesh, has completed about 6,700,000 consultations since it was rolled out in November 2019.
In April 2020, when all the outpatient services departments were shut down during the nationwide lockdown on account of the pandemic, the government launched telemedicine service for patients to obtain a doctors' consultation.
"eSanjeevani has rapidly shaped up to be the country's largest and most popular amenity," the ministry said in a statement.
The Health Ministry's statement highlighted that the telemedicine facility is plugging the digital divide which exists in urban and rural India. It is addressing the shortage of doctors and specialists at the ground-level while reducing the burden on secondary and tertiary level hospitals.
According to Dr. Rohit Shukla, an assistant professor at a reputable government hospital in the city of Chandigarh, people living in the bigger cities in India have better healthcare facilities at their disposal than those living in the rural areas and villages.
"With the government integrating all the hospitals for the telemedicine project on account of the pandemic, those living in far flung areas are also now able to get consultations from the best doctors online," he told Sputnik on Tuesday.
It is the digital conversion of medical records, charts, X-rays, histopathology slides and medical procedures that is being valued the most by doctors as these can be easily shared by patients and attendants at any point of time. Digital medical records are also helping doctors reduce the time they take in extending treatment to patients.
Earlier, patients physically carried the results of medical tests for doctors' examinations in OPDs, which inexorably delayed treatment and reduced its effectiveness.
"Online mode is much more sorted. I am able to give more time and quality time to the patient, have all his medical records in one place and give better treatment," Dr. Ramesh Verma, a senior medical specialist, told Sputnik.
For the patients, the telemedicine service has been a boon, as they are spared the necessity of making trips to government hospitals when they seek something as basic as an appointment to get a diagnostic test done.
"My father was diagnosed with cancer last year. Since all the hospitals' OPDs were shut, we panicked," Savita Sikri, a government employee in Haryana state, told Sputnik.
"But the online mode of seeking treatment really worked as we got all the appointments online and could complete radiation therapy treatment in a most effective manner," she added.
Seeing the huge success of the telemedicine services, the ministry said that as a measure of planning for another wave of COVID19 infections, an attempt is being made to augment the number of consultations to half a million patients every day.