Surajpur Telemedicine – hospital at your doorsteps
Replacing the idea ‘social distance’ by ‘vitual distance’ by effective use of technology and digital platforms.
At the time when the world is facing COVID pandemic and the country is in Lockdown, the world has come to a halt. Many restrictions have been imposed and people are wary to come out of their homes. At this stage it is important that efforts are being made to reach out to the people through various service delivery mechanisms and to facilitate them to reap the benefits without diluting the objectives of the lockdown. At this juncture when the focus has shifted entirely to tackling COVID cases, it is important to not ignore other health ailments which might impact the general health of the populace. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare recently issued Telemedicine guidelines according to which doctors will be able to write prescriptions based on telephonic, textual or video conversations — chat, https://nexusofgood.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/11, messaging, emails, fax and others. Mobile video based telemedicine services could be of great benefit to the people in resolving their minor ailments and ensuring that those who need counselling are not left unattended.
Surajpur district administration decided to use this mechanism of online diagnosis and treatment through a digital platform. This will enable the administration to take the hospital to the door step of the people virtually. The Red Cross Society of the district played a pivotal role in chalking out an exhaustive web based telemedicine module.
Availing the service
The district recently launched this service on which ailing people can register themselves and through mobile based video conferencing mechanism they can avail the services of health experts sitting at the district hospital. The link of this service is available on the district’s official website. Once a person is registered he receives an OTP on his mobile phone and by accepting it the applicant automatically moves to a video call platform where on the other side there is a doctor waiting to diagnose him. After the diagnosis the prescription is prepared by the doctor and the same is sent to his mobile via an automatic generated message. There is also a free home delivery of medicines through Jan Aushadhi Kendra which has been linked to the system. The prescribed medicines are delivered to the patient free of cost within an hour after diagnosis.
Benefits
1. Efforts have been made to make this system seamless and patient friendly where easy exchange of information takes place between the doctor and the patient.
2. The patient doesn’t have to go outside the home and it ensures that lockdown is implemented in it is full spirit.
3. There is a general fear among the public to visit hospitals presently which is aptly addressed by this system.
4. The Doctors are better able to utilise the time and and they don’t have the risk of getting infected with any other contagious disease that a person might be carrying.
5. The system supplements our efforts of door to door active surveillance as the records generated are analysed to see if there are any symptoms of copd among the patients which are getting screened through this telemedicine module.
Disasters and pandemics pose unique challenges to providing healthcare. Though telemedicine will not solve them all, it is well suited for scenarios in which medical practitioners can evaluate and manage patients. A telemedicine consultation can be conducted without exposing staff to viruses/infections in the times of such outbreaks. The objectives of the initiative is to decrease the physical presence of the patients in the hospital premises and thus saving upon their cost and time and also the risk of infection that might be transmitted by fellow patients.
