New Delhi: A record number of tele-consultations between specialist doctors at medical colleges and tertiary healthcare centres and the patients, who were joined by general doctors and paramedics at Ayushman Bharat’s Health and Wellness Centres, were conducted on April 26 and 27 on the Health Ministry’s tele-consultation service e-Sanjeevani health portal. This is the highest number of teleconsultations ever done as more than 3.5 lakh teleconsultations were conducted at Ayushman Bharat’s Health and Wellness Centres on a single day, surpassing its earlier record of three lakhs teleconsultations per day.
In addition, more than 76 lakh patients availed of the services provided by e-Sanjeevani OPD telemedicine on these two days. According to officials, the record number of tele-consultations is a testimony of the robust technology behind the e-Sanjeevani platform, which can handle such a heavy patient load with ease.
Health Ministry’s e-Sanjeevani portal has been providing access to healthcare services across the length and breadth of the country with one lakh Ayushman Bharat's Health and Wellness Centres that are registered as spokes seeking consultation and more than 25,000 hubs that are providing teleconsultations. India’s e-Sanjeevani portal, which is a first-of-its-kind of telemedicine initiative by any country in the world, has two variants.
e-Sanjeevani Ayushman Bharat (AB-HWC)
The first variant e-Sanjeevani Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centre (AB-HWC) has a Doctor-to-Doctor telemedicine service under Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centres to provide general and specialised health services in rural areas and isolated communities. According to officials, this Doctor-to-Doctor telemedicine service is based on a Hub-and-Spoke model. This model enables a virtual connection between the beneficiary (along with a paramedic and a generalist) at the spoke, which is a health and wellness centre and a doctor or specialist at the hub, which is a tertiary healthcare facility or a medical college.
This model allows for a real-time virtual consultation from doctors and specialists at the hub with the beneficiary through paramedics at the spoke. And the e-Prescription generated at the session end is used for getting the medicines. This model has been developed to use the country’s IT prowess to bypass the difficulties created by geography, accessibility, cost and distance.
At present, this model is operational at more than 80,000 Health & Wellness Centres. More than 2.70 lakh doctors were provided with general and specialised doctor-to-doctor telemedicine health services on each day (April 26 and 27) in various parts of the country including far-flung areas.
e-Sanjeevani OPD
This is the second mode where a patient-to-doctor telemedicine service enables people to get outpatient services from their homes. E-Sanjeevani OPD is available to citizens in all parts of the country. The service is available through a mobile app for both Android and iOS-based smartphones with over three million downloads.
Read: E sanjeevani Telemedicine Service Records 1 million Teleconsultation
