TELE-MEDICINE

What is Telemedicine and its scope& initiatives in India?

Telemedicine is medical information exchange between one site to another using  the high end and sophisticated  communication networks.Telemedicine facilitates the provision of medical aid from a distance. It is an effective solution for providing specialty healthcare in the form of improved access and reduced cost to the rural patients and the reduced professional isolation of the rural doctors.Telemedicine can enable ordinary doctors to perform extra-ordinary tasks.

In india, TELEMEDICINE :Healing Touch Through Space is an initiative by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) enabling specialty healthcare to the  rural and remote population of India.

India is a vast country having an area of 3.2 million square km. To provide the basic medical facilities to all including privileged ,rural and residents spread along various geographical locations had been a major concern for the administration.Having a scoop of policies on health,still quality healthcare is limited to the Urban areas. It is known that 75% of the qualified doctors practice in urban centres, whereas the vast majority of India’s population lives in the rural areas.With the advent of Communication Technology, especially the Satellite Communications (SatCom) combined with Information Technology, we have means to extend the benefits from the advanced medical sciences even to the remote and inaccessible areas.

Through its Telemedicine projects, ISRO has successfully linked hospitals and healthcare centers in remote ruralareas with specialty hospitals in cities through INSAT satellites.  Thus, connectivity between patients at remote end and the specialist doctors at urban centershas been effectively established.With a large and skilled medical community receptive tonew ideas, a modest beginning in Telemedicine was made by ISRO in the form of a Telemedicine Pilot Project in the year 2001, linking Apollo Hospital at Chennai with the Apollo Rural Hospital at Aragonda village in the Chittor district of Andhra Pradesh.  Later in March 2002,the Karnataka Telemedicine project linked the NarayanaHrudayalaya, a super specialty hospital for cardiac care at Bangalore with the district hospital, Chamarajanagar and the Vivekananda Memorial Trust Hospital at Saragurin south interior Karnataka.The valuable experience gained during these Pilot Projects encouraged ISRO to further endeavour for enabling specialty healthcare delivery to the rural population.

Explain the working of TELEMEDICINE

Telemedicine is confluenced by Communication Technology, Information Technology, Bio-medical sciences and Medical Sciences. The network is having Hardware and software at both ends with some of the diagnostic equipments like ECG,X-RAY,PATHOLOGY CAMERA/MICROSCOPE provided at the patient end. They are connected through a Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) system and controlled by the Network Hub Station of ISRO.Through the telecommunication using small computerat patiendend,Data consisting of Images,Reports can be sent to specialist doctors in form of  Digital Data Packets.These packets are received at the specialist centre, the imagesMedical datapacketssentVideo

Conferencing signals sent & receivedand other information is reconstructed so that the specialist doctor can study the data, perform diagnosis, interact with the patient and suggest the appropriate treatment during a Video Conference with the patient end.

Telemedicine facility thus enables the specialist doctor and the patient separated by thousands of kilometers to see visually and talk to each other. This enables the specialist doctor to assess the physical and psychological state of the patient and suggest treatment.

This remote tele-consultation and treatment is much more valuable in case of post operation (Post Surgery) follow up since the patient is not required to travel unnecessarily and hence saving money and time. In this way, the systematic application of Information and Communication Technologies to the practice of healthcare rapidly expands the outreach of the healthcare system.

What are the Future Prospects of TELEMEDICINE in india ?

ISRO’s Telemedicine endeavour is expanding its outreachand has the potential to open up new frontiers forfacilitating rural healthcare in India.Encouraged by the steady growth of its Telemedicine programme, ISRO has also envisioned thedevelopment of “HEALTHSAT”, an exclusive satellite formeeting the healthcare and medical education needs of the country at large.  This satellite, when deployed alongwith wireless and terrestrial communication links,can bring a large change in augmenting the presenthealthcare delivery system in the country.Specialty Tele-Consultationaccess to largePopulation

Due to the untiring efforts of various departments like the Department of Space and the Department of Information Technology, State Governments, NGOs and

Private and Corporate Hospitals/Agencies, the majorityof the rural population all over the country will stand tobenefit from Telemedicine Technology that can usher in a revolution for transforming  the face of Healthcare in India.

Thus, Telemedicine can enlarge the gap between life and death and can extend quality Healthcare to the needy and the under privileged rural, semi rural and urban population at large.