A record 3.5 lakh teleconsultations were registered on two consecutive days, April 26 and April 27, through the flagship telemedicine scheme of the Union health ministry, “eSanjeevani”, at the Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centers (AB-HWCs) across the country . This is the highest number of teleconsultations ever done at the AB-HWCs on a single day, surpassing the earlier record of three lakh, the ministry said on Thursday.
In addition, more than 76 lakh patients availed of the services provided by eSanjeevani OPD telemedicine on April 26 and April 27, it added. With around one lakh AB-HWCs registered as spokes seeking consultation and more than 25,000 hubs providing teleconsultations, the eSanjeevani portal has been facilitating access to healthcare services across the length and breadth of the country, the ministry said in a statement.
The steady rise in the number of teleconsultations to seek quality healthcare marks a big step towards “antyodaya”, where people living in the far-off and remote areas of the country are able to get quality and affordable healthcare. Teleconsultations have emerged as a boon to assure timely specialist services to the poorest across the remotest parts of the country, the statement said. eSanjeevani, the first-of-its-kind telemedicine initiative by any country, has two variants — eSanjeevani AB-HWC and eSanjeevani OPD.
eSanjeevani AB-HWC is a doctor-to-doctor teleconsultation service under the AB-HWC scheme of the Center to provide general and specialized health services in rural areas and isolated communities. The service is based on the hub-and-spoke model.
eSanjeevani AB-HWC enables virtual connection between the beneficiary (along with a paramedic and a generalist) at the spoke — an HWC — and a doctor or a specialist at the hub (a tertiary healthcare facility or a hospital or a medical college). This facilitates a real-time virtual consultation between doctors and specialists at the hub and the beneficiary through the paramedic at the spoke. The e-prescription generated at the end of the session is used for obtaining medicines, according to the statement.
eSanjeevani AB-HWC was implemented with a vision to provide quality health services to the maximum number of citizens by leveraging the potential of information technology and bypassing the hindrances of geography, accessibility, cost and distance, the statement said. Currently, eSanjeevani AB-HWC is operational at more than 80,000 health and wellness centres. More than 2.7 lakh doctors were provided with general and specialized doctor-to-doctor telemedicine health services on both days (April 26 and April 27) in various parts of the country, including far-flung areas.
eSanjeevani OPD is a patient-to-doctor telemedicine service to enable people to get outpatient services in the confines of their homes. eSanjeevani OPD has also been speedily and widely adopted by the citizens everywhere. It is available as a mobile application for both Android and iOS-based smartphones, and these apps have seen over 30 lakh downloads, the ministry said.
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