Health Ministry's eSanjeevani records 4 lakh doctor-to-patient teleconsultations

New Delhi [India], September 26 (ANI): The Union Health Ministry's eSanjeevani OPD tele-medicine platform has completed the landmark milestone of four lakh tele-consultations. The top-performing states, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh have registered 1,33,167 and 1,00,124 sessions, said the government officials on Saturday.
eSanjeevani supports two types of telemedicine services. i.e. doctor-to-doctor (eSanjeevani) and patient-to-doctor (eSanjeevani OPD) Tele-consultations in the form of delivering health services.
According to the Central government, eSanjeevani platform is being used by 26 States and over 12,000 practitioners across the country.
The health ministry said that the states like Himachal Pradesh (36,527), Kerala (33,340), Andhra Pradesh (31,034), Uttarakhand (11,526), Gujarat (8914), Madhya Pradesh (8904), Karnataka (7684), and Maharashtra (7103) have also shown a good trend in recording consultations through eSanjeevani OPD facility.
"The usage trend shows that there has been quick uptake of this service in smaller districts like Villupuram in Tamil Nadu. Over 16,000 consultations have been recorded from Villupuram, which is the topmost district in terms of teleconsultation services availed of by the beneficiaries," said the health ministry in a statement.
"The last 100,000 consultations have come up in 18 days, whereas the first 100,000 consultations had taken around three months. eSanjeevani OPD services have enabled patient-to-doctor telemedicine in midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has helped in containing the spread of COVID by ensuring physical distancing and has simultaneously enabled provisions for non-COVID essential healthcare," it added.
The health ministry added that about 20 percent of the patients have sought health services through eSanjeevani more than once.
As per the government data, eSanjeevaniOPD is running 196 online OPDs which include 27 general OPDs and 169 speciality and super-speciality OPDs in 24 states.
Premier institutions like AIIMS Bathinda, AIIMS Rishikesh, AIIMS Bibinagar, Lady Hardinge Medical College and Associated Hospitals, Regional Cancer Centre (Thiruvananthapuram), Cochin Cancer Centre (Ernakulam) are also using eSanjeevani platform to provide speciality services to the patients across the States, the government said.
Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) has also set up four speciality OPDs on eSanjeevani to provide health services to their beneficiaries in the national capital. In the coming days, CGHS is planning to extend these telemedicine services to their beneficiaries in other states, informed the government.
It may be noted that eSanjeevani platform is an important pillar of the Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centre (AB-HWCs) programme. This was rolled out in November 2019. It aims to implement teleconsultation in all the 1.5 lakh Health and Wellness Centres in a 'Hub and Spoke' model, by December 2022. (ANI)