This is All India Radio. In the program Spotlight, now we bring to you a discussion on e-Sanjeevani, A revolution in the health sector. The participants are Dr Sanjay Sood, Project Director, e-Sanjivani and Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
I am joined by Dr Sanjay Sood, he's the Project Director of e-Sanjeevani at CDAC and today we will discuss on the program on the success of e-Sanjeevani and why it's a revolution in the health sector? More specifically the importance of telemedicine in our lives and how important it is for this to succeed in the future as well to cater to the medical needs of our population? uh Dr Sood for the benefit of our listeners do tell us about e-Sanjeevani and its importance in relation to telemedicine.
Dr Sanjay Sood
Thank you Arjun. e-Sanjeevani is the country's national telemedicine service which is conceptualised and made available by the Ministry of Health and Family welfare and is operational in all the states and union territories of the country and the objective of e-Sanjeevani is to to increase access to health care services hence health equity and also further the agenda of Government of India towards universal health coverage.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
So, how does it work? How does one access it in terms of getting consultation and then treatment as well online by means of this telemedicine? What is a procedure, how is it practised? This is for the benefit of the common man who is tuning into this program.
Dr Sanjay Sood
Yeah, e-Sanjeevani is available in two variants. The first variant is called e-Sanjeevani AB-HWC which is operational at almost all the health and wellness centres in the country across all the states and Union territories and this particular variant is called doctor to doctor or provider to provider telemedicine platform wherein the application or the telemedicine service enables the population the rural areas to get connected to the doctors or access health services without having to visit the the hospitals or tertiary level hospitals or District hospitals that is well within their Village or the nearest health and wellness centers. And the other variant is e-Sanjeevani OPD which is which is called patient to doctor telemedicine platform or patient to provider telemedicine platform and this particular model enables the the citizens to connect with the doctor or consult doctors in the confined with their homes by by downloading the e-Sanjeevani OPD application in their smartphones applications through laptops and computers.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
So, what is the nature of the illness that one can use telemedicine more effectively, especially the doctor to Patient OPD. How does one explain their symptoms and get a diagnosis and is that enough? Does one have to follow up on this in terms of the physical interaction and the testing done and even surgery if required?.
Dr Sanjay Sood
e-Sanjeevani OPD enables first OPD consultations as well and it also facilitates follow-up consultations in case the the patient has already had a consultation and wishes to seek another consultation that is also feasible and it can also support in terms of pre-operative or post-operative care and we are working towards getting more and more tertiary level hospitals on board like all the institutions on board which are tertiary level institutions so that when the patient gets treated there, goes back to his home or her home they can then follow up with the same doctor or specialist without having to travel back to the hospital. So, e-Sanjeevani OPD enables or facilitates all types of consultations and the patient doesn't need to visit Hospital unless and until the doctor calls for the patient or the patient is to be admitted or some procedure is to be performed.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
What are the costs involved for using this app only for consultation and then if required to follow up on the consultation with an on-site visit?
Dr Sanjay Sood
As such e-Sanjeevani services or services available on e-Sanjeevani are absolutely free. Patients can just login into e-Sanjeevani and as per the availability of the specialists get connected to the doctor through the online OPDs. So, there is absolutely no cost for patients to see a doctor through e-Sanjeevani.
but the follow-up would involve a cost for the patient concerned?
Yes, in case the patient is to visit then it will certainly be a traditional or conventional visit to the hospital. the cost will have to be borne out of pocket.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
Now you mentioned about the hospitals which are on panel. How are you linking them up and how are the doctors available to provide teleconsultation in terms of the man hours? How are the resources being organised for making this app successful?
Dr Sanjay Sood
We've left the assignment of doctors on e-Sanjeevani OPD entirely to the hospital administration. So, depending upon the requirements are depending upon the load that the specialty is getting on in OPD’s. So, depending upon that load they decide that which OPD or which speciality will be open on how many days for how many hours. So, depends and we have institutions like Lady Hardinge Medical College and Nimhans Bangalore and then AIIMS of various states AIIMS like in Rishikesh and even AIIMS New Delhi is working towards getting on board e-Sanjeevani. So all these tertiary level hospitals are also now getting on board e-Sanjeevani and we are also working towards having Tele MANAS which is the national tele mental health initiative of Government of India will also be using e-Sanjeevani platform for video consultations between the patients and the mental health specialists or practitioners.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
So, is the cost borne by the hospital itself when it provides teleconsultation online on this app or is the government actually subsidising this cost incurred by the hospitals which are extending resources for telemedicine?
Dr Sanjay Sood
As far as the IT infra or the platform is concerned, Ministry of Health and Family welfare is funding the entire initiative. And as regards the resources, medical experts or specialists these resources are being drawn from the states or the hospitals existing pool wherein they are required to devote certain part of their duty on e-Sanjeevani. So, this is not an additional cost in hospitals, they are using more or less the resources which they already have. It's just like opening another channel for connecting with the patients as a virtual OPD or as an online OPDs.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
So, doctor SOOD, discussed about the patient to doctor consultation online along with the OPD benefits to the patient who is seeking consultation from the doctor concern you mentioned about the doctor to doctor consultation as well how does that work, is it between a generalist versus specialist. Is that how it is working? How is the benefit being leveraged?
Dr Sanjay Sood
Actually e-Sanjeevani, Ayushman Bharat Health & Wellness Center is the variant which is operational as the doctor to doctor or provider to provider telemedicine platform and it is acting as the cornerstone for the world's largest health insurance scheme owned by a government that is Ayushman Bharat scheme. At all the health and wellness centres in the country e-Sanjeevani, Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Center have been implemented at almost all the health and wellness centres across country and health and wellness centres normally are you know providing Services. Each health and wellness centre is providing services to a population of around 5000 people. And whenever the patients you know especially as WCS are located in the rural areas so whenever anybody in the rural areas wishes to seek Health Services when they visit health and wellness centres and the community health officer facilitates a consultation between the patient and the associated Hub where the Specialists or the uh or the super Specialists are located. So, they speak with the patient or they consult with the specialist and that is how you know this model operates that the rural population now does not need to or do not need to rather visit hospitals and seek Health Services. They can just go to the nearest health and wellness centre and get free consultation with a specialist or a super specialist there itself.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
Dr Sood, Is e-Sanjeevani linked to health insurance in any which way in terms of the patient also then accessing uh testing benefits and medicine from the over-the-counter as well?
Dr Sanjay Sood
e-Sanjeevani consultations are honoured by the system within Ayushman Bharat Scheme, that means the prescription generated here in the doctor to doctor variant, they do get honoured for all sorts of treatments on Ayushman Bharat Health Insurance Scheme. As far as the patient or doctor model is concerned and other private insurance companies are concerned yet this part is to be done and it depends on the private insurance service providers if and when they would start sort of honouring or recognizing these costs or maybe in these costs for tests Etc whatever is prescribed using e-Sanjeevani prescriptions.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
Dr Sood, what is the coverage of the e-Sanjeevani right now in terms of the territory in India is concerned? How many states and UTs have been covered so far and what is the future implementation of this plan?
Dr Sanjay Sood
e-Sanjeevani is available or has been implemented in all the states and Union Territories, the Island Territories like Andaman Nicobar Islands Etc they are also using e-Sanjeevani and as far as the future is concerned based on the directions from Ministry of Health and Family welfare, we at Center for development of Advanced Computing, we are providing to them the requirements. I mean providing to them the features and functionalities as they are requested like the Ministry of Health and Family welfare wanted a multilingual interface for uh in 11 languages we put that together and similarly the Ministry of Health and Family welfare wants now to scale up the utilisation of features evenly common from a tele consultation platform to tele diagnosis to enable daily diagnosis as well. So, we are working towards integrating lots of medical devices or you can say point of care testing devices with e-Sanjeevani which will enable the seamless transfer of test results which are conducted in the villages, your health and wellness centres to reach the doctors and then doctors can make much more accurate or a quicker you know diagnosis based on the information or the reports results that they receive. So, these are the kinds of Innovations and enhancements those are being carried out on e-Sanjeevani on a regular basis.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
Is there any type of education module on instructing patients as to the nature of their illness or treatment once it's diagnosed or to some extent been explained in the consultation as a follow-up?
Dr Sanjay Sood
Yet we do not have specific modules pertaining to medical conditions but during the consultations doctors do educate patients about various aspects which the patients must know while managing the medical condition.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
What are the figures in terms of patient involvement under e-Sanjeevani? Could you give us a number?
Dr Sanjay Sood
e-Sanjeevani, on daily basis, is serving over 300000 patients and it has served over 5.1 lakh patients in a day. And in all essentially recently completed over 10 crore consultations and it is it is getting more and more bigger and we are working towards the capacities where e-Sanjeevani would be in a position to serve over 10 lakh patients every day.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
So, what's the IT infrastructure to serve such a large volume of people who are seeking medical help on this telemedicine platform?
Dr Sanjay Sood
e-Sanjeevani is a cloud-based uh in you know telemedicine platform which has been developed using cutting edge window technologies and has incorporated artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms as well in e-Sanjeevani and this not only empowers the patients and the practitioners but also ensures that it is capable of serving just about any load patients that gets on that reaches out for seeking care from e-Sanjeevani.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
Dr Sood, finally if a listener on this program tunes into the e-Sanjeevani app, what are the initial requirements. Obviously, you have to give your details but is an appointment date and time given for the consultation or is it an immediate delivery of service?
Dr Sanjay Sood
As per the directions from Mohfw, we've mimicked the traditional hospital-based OPD in the system. The patient logs in into e-Sanjeevani OPD and then selects the specific OPD in which the patient would want to see a doctor and then raises a request and as soon as the request is raised the patient or the citizen gets into the waiting queue and as per the as per the uh the waiting number or queue number the patients turn subsequently I mean after every depending upon the number of doctors who are serving that particular OPD.
Arjun J Chaudhary, AIR correspondent.
Well thank you so much Dr Sanjay Sood for being with us on All India Radio and explaining to us the details of the successful e-Sanjeevani app which is serving so many people in the country and alleviating the pain and suffering in the health sector.
Dr Sanjay Sood
Thank you so much Arjun and I would like to include here that e-Sanjeevani by the courtesy of all the practitioners you know administrators policy makers at the Central Ministry and all the health departments in the country, e-Sanjeevani has you know shaped into the world's largest telemedicine platform and we are continuing to make it even bigger. thank you
This program was produced and presented by the News Services Division of All India Radio. You can listen to it on a mobile app, News On Air, you may email opinion about this program at airnsdtalks@ gmail.com
———–
