In what can be described as a remarkable feat, more than half a crore patients were served by the National Telemedicine Service (eSanjeevani) during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic which has been there for more than a year.
The onset of the pandemic has witnessed a rapid and widespread adoption of the National Telemedicine Service as eSanjeevani has been performing as a parallel stream of the country's healthcare delivery system that is already overburdened.
When it was launched in April 2020, eSanjeevani was primarily envisioned as a modality to provide non-COVID related health services. However, based on the potential benefits of this application of eHealth, the States were quick to design processes and workflows to utilise eSanjeevani for delivering health services related to Covid-19.
Now, States have set up OPDs for monitoring and management of Covid-19 home quarantined patients.
In fact, now a few States are working towards rolling out special Home IsolationOPDs wherein the patients will be screened for Covid-19 and for remote screening purposes States are planning to engage final year MBBS students.
The increase in the load of cases has led a few States eSanjeevaniOPD being used round the clock. The South Indian State of Tamil Nadu is the first to record over 10 lakh consultations on eSanjeevani. In order to meet the increasing number of patients, the Ministry of Defence too has roped in veterans of Armed Forces Medical Services to provide their services to the public in selected States.
National Telemedicine Service #eSanjeevani of @MoHFW_INDIA has served more than half a crore patients during this #COVID19 Pandemic‼️
Operational in 31 States/UTs…COME, Be a PART of it‼️#PIBKochi @AyushmanNHA @PIB_India @KirenRijiju @BSF_India @MinistryWCD @smritiirani pic.twitter.com/TRgAC0crn9
— PIB in KERALA (@PIBTvpm) May 13, 2021
At Mohali’s C-DAC centre, the developers of eSanjeevani are working towards adding another innovative feature in eSanjeevaniOPD that will enable roll out of NationalOPDs on eSanjeevaniOPD. These NationalOPDs will enable doctors to offer remote health services to patients in any part of the country. This will, greatly help in addressing the challenges like shortage and uneven distribution of doctors and specialists in various regions of the country.
The eSanjeevani, the flagship National Telemedicine Service which is a Patient to Doctor remote consultation services was rolled out by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in April 2020 when the Out Patient Departments (OPDs) in the country were closed during the first lockdown.
At present the initiative is now operational in 31 States and Union Territories in the country and daily around 40,000 patients across the country are using this contactless and risk-free modality of healthcare services delivery.
There are two modules of eSanjeevani. The eSanjeevaniAB-HWC is the doctor to doctor telemedicine platform and is being implemented at all the Health and Wellness Centres in the country in hub and spoke model under Ayushman Bharat Scheme of Government of India.
So far, it has been implemented at more than 18000 Health and Wellness Centres and 1500 plus Hubs. By December 2022 telemedicine would be operational at 1,55,000 Health and Wellness Centres. Rolled out in November 2019, 22 States have started using this digital modality and close to around 2 million patients have been extended health services by doctors and specialists.
In all, over 21,000 users including specialists, doctors and community health officers have been trained and onboarded on eSanjeevaniAB-HWC.
The second module of National Telemedicine Service is eSanjeevaniOPD. This has been rolled out in 28 States and Union Territories.
Till now more than 350 OPDs have been set up on eSanjeevaniOPD, of which over 300 are specialty OPDs. More than 30,00,000 patients have been served through eSanjeevaniOPD, a free of cost service.
This digital health modality enables delivery of health services to the citizens in the confines of their homes.
The States that lead in terms of number of consultations of eSanjeevani are Tamil Nadu (1044446), Karnataka (936658), Uttar Pradesh (842643), Andhra Pradesh (835432), Madhya Pradesh (250135), and Gujarat (240422).
