The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is planning to roll out the next version of its national telemedicine initiative eSanjeevani, by launching an eSanjeevani 2.0 with enhanced telemedicine experience having new features both in terms of technology as well as innovation, making it more secure and scalable to undertake additional demands. The initiative has touched a milestone by providing telemedicine services to more than 10 crore patients in the country since its launch.
The ministry will be rolling out the eSanjeevani 2.0 across all States and Union Territories within next two weeks. The ministry said that after tapping the potential of teleconsultations, it is all set to add the logical next dimension of telediagnosis in the new avatar of eSanjeevani. This entails seamless integration of a vast spectrum of Point of Care Diagnostic devices (PoCDs), also known as near patient testing.
PoCDs provide results of various clinical tests including physiological parameters within minutes of taking a test thereby facilitating rapid diagnosis and quick decisions.
eSanjeevani 2.0 will enhance the telemedicine experience further with a plethora of new features both in terms of technology as well as innovation. The architecture is now more secure whilst being scalable to undertake additional demands, said the Ministry.
Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Dr Mansukh Mandaviya appreciated the health services through the digital platform, and said that 100.11 million patients were served at 1,15,234 Health and Wellness Centres (as spokes) through 15,731 hubs and 1,152 online outpatient departments (OPDs) populated with 2,29,057 medical specialists and super specialists trained in telemedicine.
eSanjeevani has been augmented further to support over 1 million consultations in a day, so far, the platform has peaked to serve 5,10,702 patients in a day, said the Minister.
“India has crossed a landmark milestone in its eHealth journey. The Government of India’s national telemedicine platform – eSanjeevani- registered another landmark by providing teleconsultation services to 10 crore beneficiaries,” said the Minister.
“It can be safely assumed that through ICT, eSanjeevani has democratised healthcare. It is reassuring to note that over 57% of the beneficiaries of eSanjeevani are women and around 12% beneficiaries are senior citizens. This platform also reflects that the platform is finding its reach in the more vulnerable sections of the population where its effect fetches maximum impact. This speaks volumes about the telemedicine platform and the extent to which it has reinvented itself over time to meet the growing demands of healthcare in India”, he added.
Leading 10 States in terms of adoption of eSanjeevani are Andhra Pradesh (3.17 crore), Tamil Nadu (1.24 crore), West Bengal (1.23 crore), Karnataka (1.13 crore), Uttar Pradesh (54.99 lakh), Maharashtra (47.80 lakh), Telangana (45.91 lakh), Madhya Pradesh (40.16 lakh), Bihar (32.20 lakh) and Gujarat (29.88 lakh).
The cloud-based eSanjeevani platform was introduced in two modes, the eSanjeevaniAB-HWC (a provider-to-provider telemedicine platform) as an assisted telemedicine system that connects patients through health workers and medical officers in Health & Wellness Centres to the doctors and specialists in hubs established in secondary/tertiary level health facilities or medical colleges, based on a Hub-and-Spoke model; and eSanjeevaniOPD (a patient to provider telemedicine platform) empowering citizens to access outpatient services in the confines of their homes through smartphones of laptops etc. The eSanjeevani project was launched in November, 2019.
The initiative has enabled digitalisation of health information, which can aid policymakers to come up with effective and timely health policies.
The telemedicine services gained momentum with the outbreak of Covid-19 helping patients to access doctors and medical specialists for non-Covid 19 and Covid 19 medical conditions safely from within the confines of their homes.
eSanjeevani’s patient to doctor variant was rapidly developed and rolled out by the pioneers of telemedicine in Mohali branch of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing while working from home during the first National lockdown in March 2020.
The Ministry said that the indigenously developed, eSanjeevani technology has brought in a significant shift in the sphere of health informatics by enabling the digitalisation of health information. Apart from the direct benefit of being able to facilitate care on demand, and leveraging the potential of information technology, eSanjeevani successfully overcomes the challenges of geography, accessibility, cost and distance to provide equitable and quality care to populations across India. It is also shaping into the harbinger of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission that aims to develop the backbone necessary to support the integrated digital health infrastructure of the country, it added.
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