Centre’s ‘eSanjeevani’ digital platform has achieved important milestone of providing two lakh tele-consultations in a very short span of time since November 2019.
Currently, 23 states are using this digital platform. That means around 75 per cent of India’s population is covered by this platform. Others states are also in the process of rolling out this service.
Only 10 days ago, on August 9, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan attended a meeting with the representatives of States and Union Territories to celebrate the completion of 1.5 lakh tele-consultations provided by the ‘eSanjeevani’.
In the past 10 days, 50 thousand people were provided teleconsultations, which is a significant achievement by any yardstick.
“In what can be seen as a big push for the ‘Digital India’ initiative of the prime minister, the eSanjeevani platform has proved its usefulness and easy access for the caregivers and the medical community, and those seeking healthcare services in the time of Covid-19,” said the health ministry.
This platform provides two types of consultation. First type of consultation is called eSanjeevan, and the second type of consultation is called eSanjeevani OPD.
Under the first type, doctor-to-doctor consultation is provided, while eSanjeevani OPD is meant for patient-to-doctor consultations.
Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centre (AB-HWC) implements eSanjeevani service. Its primary objective is to bring all the 1.5 lakh Health and Wellness Centres on its platform. Identified medical college hospitals have also been integrated with this platform.
“States have identified and set up dedicated ‘Hubs’ in medical colleges and district hospitals to provide tele-consultation services to ‘Spokes’, i.e sub-health centres (SHCs), primary health centres (PHCs) and Health and Wellness Centres,” the ministry said in a statement.
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Second tele-consultation service ‘eSanjeevaniOPD’ provides patient-to-doctor telemedicine owing to the Covid-19 pandemic in April this year.
“This has proved a boon in containing the spread of Covid while simultaneously enabling provisions for non-Covid essential healthcare,” it said.
The eSanjeevani has been implemented so far by 23 states and other states are in the process of rolling it out, it said.
The top five states which have been utilising the e-health services being offered through this platform are Tamil Nadu (56,346 consultations), Uttar Pradesh (33,325), Andhra Pradesh (29,400), Himachal Pradesh (26,535) and Kerala (21,433).