Telemedicine Gets Big Push in Fight Against COVID-19
PM Narendra Modi during his address on March 30 emphasised on the use of Telemedicine to deal with the current situation of crisis. Recently, the Health Ministry has issued guidelines which were pending for 10 years.
Teleconsultation and Telemedicine portals like Practo have been receiving requests from a large number of hospitals to make online consultation accessible to them. Practo has increased its doctor base by close to 50 per cent in the last four days so that access and continuity to care are not concerns for Indians.
Dr Alexander Kuruvilla, Chief Health Strategy Officer, Practo said, “This not only helps avoid gathering and overcrowding at hospitals but also keeps the medical staff safe if say an infected person shows up unannounced.”
myUpchar, an online e-commerce and teleconsultation portal has created a task force to deal with the current crisis. While most of them are still working from their warehouses, Rajat Garg, Co-Founder, myUpchar said, “Our systems like call centres, teleconsultations required close coordination and were not setup for this. However, we worked with authorities to get the necessary IDs and curfew passes which enabled our team to become functional again. There are still inter-city issues but given the speed at which the government is sorting out the issue, we believe that several such issues will be resolved quickly.”
Garg said, “Tele-medicine allows access to quality doctors for patients in remote areas and also increases the ability for doctors to see more patients by combining technology to triage patients properly. Not only this, currently continued doctor-patient engagement is broken, which can be resolved via technology tools. This will lead to better patient adherence and early detection.”
Dr Kuruvilla said, "Specifically to Covid-19, one of the best ways to ensure maximum coverage (medical attention) and minimum spread at clinics, waiting rooms, ERs, is to make use of virtual visits. Virtual healthcare or teleconsult, allows one to reduce exposure while receiving care affordably at the comfort of one’s home. It can be used effectively as a screening mechanism, whereby only serious cases are advised to go for tests and physical examination, as required."
