The National Telemedicine Service is Serving Over 70,000 Patients on A Daily Basis

The National Telemedicine Service of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has completed 90 lakh teleconsultations in the country. The last 10 lakh consultations came up in record 17 days.

Government of India’s eSanjeevani initiative has gained popularity amongst doctors and patients across country. New users are continuously adopting telemedicine as eSanjeevani has proved to be a feasible, easy to use, practical means of seeking health services remotely. This is evident from the fact that in past one month, eSanjeevani network’s utilisation has gone up by a factor of around 1.5 times.

eSanjeevani platform has been consistently getting diffused in the ecosystem and currently it is serving 70,000 patients on daily basis. eSanjeevani – the National Telemedicine Service is serving patients through two variants namely – doctor to doctor (eSanjeevaniAB-HWC) and patient to doctor (eSanjeevani OPD). eSanjeevani AB-HWC was launched by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in November 2019 under Govt. of India’s Ayushman Bharat Scheme in ‘Hub & Spoke’ model and by December 2022 it would be implemented at 1,55,000 Health & Wellness Centres across India. eSanjeevaniAB-HWC is functional at over 25,000 Health and Wellness Centres as spokes and these spokes are being served by medical officers, specialists and super-specialists seated in over 2000 hubs.

The second variant of this mammoth initiative i.e. eSanjeevani OPD was rolled out on 13th of April 2020 during the first lockdown when the OPDs across the country were shutdown.  eSanjeevaniOPD is enabling delivery of health services to patients in the confines of their homes. At present eSanjeevani OPD is hosting over 430 online OPDs,  around 400 of these are speciality and super-speciality online OPDs. Over 60,000 doctors and health-workers across the country have been trained on both the variants of eSanjeevani.

Considering the potential that telemedicine has especially in view of the ongoing pandemic, States and Union Territories are consistently working towards strengthening the IT infrastructure within the health care delivery set ups. These efforts are aimed at stepping up the practice of telemedicine at all levels, they are utilising eSanjeevaniAB-HWC platform to ensure access of specialised health services to the populace living in rural and isolated areas. The States and UTs are also stepping up this digital health modality by opening newer speciality and super-speciality onlineOPDs on eSanjeevaniOPD. Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in Mohali is providing end-to-end services in maintaining the National Telemedicine Service and in addressing the needs of the users in States and Union Territories. 

The top ten States which have registered highest consultations through eSanjeevani and eSanjeevani OPD platforms are Andhra Pradesh (2355598), Karnataka (1720040), Tamil Nadu (1428680), Uttar Pradesh (1182949), Gujarat (388191), Madhya Pradesh (333013), Maharashtra (303185), Bihar (300380), Kerala (228567), Uttarakhand (211280).