The Union Health Ministry’s ‘eSanjeevani’ digital platform has completed 5 lakh teleconsultations with over 1 lakh consultations in just the last 17 days.
The ministry tweeted, “With over 1 lakh consultations in just the last 17 days, eSanjeevani of MOHFW crosses the milestone of hosting 5 lakh teleconsultations. #SwasthaBharat.”
ESanjeevani platform has enabled two types of telemedicine services viz. Doctor-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani) and Patient-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani OPD) Tele-consultations, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
“States have identified and set up dedicated ‘Hubs’ in Medical Colleges and District hospitals to provide teleconsultation services to ‘Spokes’, i.e SHCs, PHCs and HWCs,” it said.
With over 1 lakh consultations in just the last 17 days, eSanjeevani of @MOHFW_India crosses the milestone of hosting 5 lakh tele-consultations. #SwasthaBharat pic.twitter.com/yOMaBPofXq
— Ministry of Health (@MoHFW_INDIA) October 12, 2020
The Health Ministry rolled out the second teleconsultation service ‘eSanjeevaniOPD’ enabling patient-to-doctor telemedicine owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in November 2019 launched ‘eSanjeevani 2019 and it is to be implemented at 1,55,000 Health and Wellness Centres in conjunction with identified Medical College hospitals under Govt. of India’s Ayushman Bharat Scheme in ‘Hub & Spoke’ model by December 2022. eSanjeevaniAB-HWC is functional at around 4,000 Health and Wellness Centres and onboarding of an equal number of HWCs is underway.
The second variant of this ambitious initiative, eSanjeevaniOPD which has the potential of being the world’s largest telemedicine platform, was rolled out on 13th of April 2020 during the first lockdown when the OPDs across the country were closed. eSanjeevaniOPD enables access to OPD services by the patients in the confines of their homes.
eSanjeevaniOPD has been accepted evenly by both the patients and the doctors. Over 100 telemedicine practitioners have completed more than 1,000 tele-consultations and a few of them have logged over 10,000 consultations. On the other hand, over 20% patients have used eSanjeevani to consult with doctors for more than once.
Rapid adoption of eSanjeevaniOPD across the country has taken a significant step forward with the launch of a wide range of speciality and super-speciality OPDs. Besides general and speciality OPDs, AIIMS Bathinda has set up super-specialty OPDs like radiation oncology, surgical oncology, paediatric surgery; these super-speciality OPDs providing online OPD services to patients in all neighbouring states including Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh & Himachal Pradesh. Tamil Nadu government is providing AYUSH, Yoga and Naturopathy OPD services through eSanjeevaniOPD.
Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi has set up a Dental & Oral Maxillofacial Surgery OPD for patients in New Delhi. Kerala is setting up 14 OPDs on eSanjeevaniOPD for providing Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram – District Early Intervention Centres services for its populace. Each of these 14 OPDs on the telemedicine platform has a team comprising of psychologist, special educator, speech therapist and a physiotherapist who can collectively address common issues pertaining to child development and their future health.
At present, eSanjeevaniOPD is hosting 26 general OPDs and 190 speciality and super-speciality OPDs. Around 20,000 doctors and health-workers across the country have been trained on both the variants of eSanjeevani.
The Union Health Ministry is complementing efforts of State Governments by establishing a robust digital health ecosystem and human and infrastructural resources to boost the adoption of eSanjeevani. The Ministry has roped in Centre for Development of Advanced Computing’s Mohali branch for providing end-to-end technical services like development, implementation, operations and training of health personnel.
The top ten States which have registered highest consultations through eSanjeevani and eSanjeevaniOPD platforms are Tamil Nadu (169977), Uttar Pradesh (134992), Himachal Pradesh (39326), Kerala (39300), Andhra Pradesh (31365), Uttarakhand (16442), Madhya Pradesh (14965), Gujarat (10839), Karnataka (9498), Maharashtra.