04-12-2012, 06:40 PM
Enabling Specialty Healthcare to the Rural and Remote Population of India
Telemedicine.pdf (Size: 2.01 MB / Downloads: 87)
With an area of about 3.2 million square kilometres,
India is the seventh largest country in the world. This
vast South Asian country gifted with ancient historic
background is endowed with varied landscapes like
mountain regions, deserts, green plains, and the
far-flung and hilly areas in the Jammu & Kashmir,
Uttaranchal, North Eastern Region and the offshore
islands of Andamans and Lakshadweep.
To provide the basic minimum healthcare for India’s
population which is predominantly rural and distributed
across distant geographical locations has been one
of the priorities of Health Administration all along.
In today’s world, despite several advances made in the
Medical field, the benefits are still available to the
privileged few residing mainly in the urban 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. 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.
The Indian Space Programme is driven by the
developmental needs of the country and has endeavoured
to reach out to the grassroots. Today, the national space
systems comprising of advanced communication
and remote sensing satellites address a variety of
national needs including communications and natural
resources management.
The Beginning
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.
Through its Telemedicine projects, ISRO has successfully
linked hospitals and healthcare centers in remote rural
areas with specialty hospitals in cities through
INSAT satellites. Thus, connectivity between patients at
remote end and the specialist doctors at urban centers
has been effectively established.
With a large and skilled medical community receptive to
new 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.
What is Telemedicine?
“The delivery of healthcare services, where distance
is a critical factor, by all healthcare professionals
using information and communication technologies
for the exchange of valid information for diagnosis,
treatment and prevention of disease and injuries,
research and evaluation, and for the continuing
education of healthcare providers, all in the
interests of advancing the health of individuals and
their communities”
Technology of Telemedicine
Telemedicine is a confluence of Communication
Technology, Information Technology, Biomedical
Engineering and Medical Science. The Telemedicine
system consists of customised hardware and software
at both the Patient and Specialist doctor ends with some
of the Diagnostic Equipments like ECG, X-ray and
pathology Microscope/Camera 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 a Telemedicine system
consisting of simple computer with communication
systems, the medical images and other information
pertaining to the patients can be sent to the specialist
doctors, either in advance or on a real time basis through
the satellite link in the form of Digital Data Packets.
Telemedicine Initivatives
Beginning with ISRO’s Telemedicine pilot project of 2001,
the Telemedicine Network in India has treated more than
25,000 patients. Presently, ISRO’s Telemedicine
Network stretches to around 100 Hospitals all over the
country with 78 Remote/Rural/District Hospitals/Health
Centres connected to 22 Specialty Hospitals located in
the major cities.
Many States have come forward to introduce Telemedicine
on a regular operational basis and have planned to equip
all the District Hospitals with Telemedicine facility both for
ambulatory & Intensive care treatment. Karnataka,
Chattisgarh, Kerala and Jarkand are some of the states
which have initiated the establishment of Satellite Based
Telemedicine Facility for all their district hospitals and a
few trust hospitals. This will soon be followed by other
States too.
As a result of ISRO’s Telemedicine endeavour, remote
areas like Kargil and Leh in the North, offshore islands of
Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshwadeep, as well as some
of the interior parts of Orissa, Karnataka, Kerala,
Chattisgarh, J&K, North-eastern states of India and some
tribal districts in certain other states have access to
specialty healthcare from some of the major specialty
hospitals in the country today.