AIR Spotlight: e-Sanjeevani - A Revolution in the Health Sector

AIR Spotlight is an insightful program featured daily on the All India Radio News on air. In this program, many eminent panellists discuss issues of importance which can be quite helpful in IAS exam preparation.

This article is about the discussion on: ‘ e-Sanjeevani – A Revolution in the Health Sector’.

Participants: 

1. Dr Sanjay Sood    –   Project Director of e-Sanjeevani 
2. Arjun J Chaudary    –     AIR Correspondent

Context – The success of e-Sanjeevani, a national telemedicine service of India and its importance in catering to the medical needs of India’s population. It aims to increase the access of a common man  to the health care services and to further the agenda of  GoI towards universal health coverage.

e-Sanjeevani – A National TeleMedicine Service-

e-Sanjeevani is a national tele-medicine service that strives to provide an alternative to the conventional physical consultation via digital platform. It is an e-health initiative of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.  It has two variants –

1. Doctor to doctor (e-Sanjeevani AB-HWC) in hub and spoke model.
2. Patient to doctor (e-Sanjeevani OPD).

e-Sanjeevani (AB-HWC) –

• It is being implemented under Ayushman Bharat – Health and Wellness centres (AB-HWCs).

• It is a Doctor-to-Doctor telemedicine service through which the beneficiaries visiting a HWC can virtually connect to doctors/ specialists in the Hub that could be at a tertiary healthcare facility/hospital/medical college.
• This enables the government to provide general and specialised health services in rural areas and isolated communities and aims to bridge rural-urban digital health divide.

e-Sanjeevani OPD –

• The second variant, e-Sanjeevani OPD  is serving patients across the country, connecting them directly to doctors from the comforts of their homes.
• It was launched amid Covid -19 pandemic to enable patient to doctor teleconsultation. 
• It caters to citizens in both rural and urban alike. It leverages technology via smartphones, tablets, laptops enabling doctor consultations to be accessible from the patient’s residence regardless of location. 
• Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Mohali, which is providing holistic technical training and support to users, is augmenting the faculties of this vertical to be able to serve up to 1 million patients per day.
•  Both versions – eSanjeevani AB-HWC and eSanjeevani OPD have been integrated with the ABDM platform.

Make in India Initiative –

e-Sanjeevani is an exemplification of the ‘Make in India’ initiative as it has been developed indigenously by the Health Informatics Group in Mohali branch Centre for Development and Advanced Computing (C-DAC). It is a cloud based tele-medicine platform developed using cutting edge technologies

•  A number of experienced engineers are providing constant backend technical and operational support to ensure high throughput and high uptime; 
• AI ( artificial intelligence), machine learning and algorithms have been incorporated in e-Sanjeevani. This ensures that the platform is capable of serving a huge rush of patients. 

e-Sanjeevani – Patient Involvement

e-Sanjeevani has crossed a landmark milestone by providing telemedicine services to over 10 crore beneficiaries.

• The tele-medicine services have been availed by more than 57% female beneficiaries and around 12% beneficiaries are senior citizens. 
• e-Sanjeevani has been augmented further to support over 1 million consultations in a day.
• So far, the platform has peaked to serve around 5.1 lakh patients in a day.

e- Sanjeevani – Territorial Coverage

e- Sanjeevani has been implemented in all States and UTs of the country.

• Leading 10 States in terms of adoption of e-Sanjeevani are Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana , Madhya Pradesh, Bihar  and Gujarat.

e-Sanjeevani- teleconsultation to telediagnosis

After tapping the potential of teleconsultations to the fullest, the Union Health Ministry is all set to add the logical next dimension of telediagnosis in the new avatar of e-Sanjeevani. 

• This entails seamless integration of a vast spectrum Point of Care Diagnostic Devices (PoCDs), also known as near patient testing. 
• PoCDs provide results of various clinical tests including physiological parameters within minutes of taking a test thereby facilitating rapid diagnosis and quick decisions.
• e-Sanjeevani 2.0 will enhance the telemedicine experience further with a plethora of new features both in terms of technology as well as innovation. The architecture is now more secure whilst being scalable to undertake additional demands.

Conclusion – 

As a cornerstone of Ayushman Bharat Scheme – world’s largest health insurance to achieve Universal Health Coverage, eSanjeevani is testimony to the fact that digital health has come of age in India. 

• eSanjeevani has digitally brought healthcare services to the masses in rural areas and remote communities. This first-of-its-kind, government owned telemedicine platform has brought a colossal populace (doctors as well as patients) in the fold of the digital health ecosystem by providing free of cost consultations to one and all. 
• The initiative has enabled digitalisation of health information, which can aid policymakers to come up with effective and timely health policies.

Read previous AIR Spotlight articles in the link.

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