Health Ministry’s free telemedicine programme eSanjeevani is gaining popularity among patients and doctors. It is estimated that five lakh telecom consultations have been completed as on October 12. The last one lakh consultations were completed in a record time of 17 days. The eSanjeevani service is gaining recognition as the digital model of health care service delivery. It records up to 8,000 telecommunications per day. Currently, 26 states use two categories of eSanjeevani telemedicine services. There are 26 general eSanjeevani OPDs and 190 specialty and super-specialty OPDs.
Doctor to doctor and patient to doctor are two categories of the service. More than 20,000 doctors and health professionals across the country have been trained to work on the platform.
Hundreds of telemedicine practitioners have completed more than a thousand teleconsultations so far. Twenty per cent of patients have used the service more than once. Super-specialty OPD is another step. The Government of Tamil Nadu provides AYUSH, Yoga and Naturopathy OPD services. Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, has launched various OPDs for patients.
The total number of consultations in India as on October 12 reached 500091. Kerala ranks in the top ten in the use of this service.
The Union Ministry of Health plans to introduce more technology and enhance training to eSanjeevani in collaboration with the Mohali Branch of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing.
