Context

• Recently, the Union Health Ministry’s national telemedicine initiative eSanjeevani has crossed 1 million teleconsultations.

Key Details

• The eSanjeevani is being used by patients in over 550 districts of India.
• Over 10 per cent of the users of eSanjeevani are aged 60 and above. Close to around one fourth of the total patients have used eSanjeevani more than once.
• These stands as a testimony to the fact that public has started preferring telemedicine over visiting hospital OPDs for consulting a doctor.
• The roll-out of eSanjeevani in India is supposedly the first-of-its-kind of digital transformation in the delivery of health services at national scale by a developing country.
• eSanjeevani not only brought about a huge digital transformation in the delivery of health services but had also boosted the digital health ecosystem in the country.
• The eSanjeevani initiative of the health ministry is serving in two streams in 28 states and union territories.
• The eSanjeevani AB-HWC enables doctor-to-doctor teleconsultations and is being used around 6,000 health and wellness centres which are being served by specialists and doctors in around 240 hubs that have been set up by states in district hospitals or medical colleges.
• Over 20,000 paramedics, doctors and specialists have been trained to use eSanjeevani Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs).
• The eSanjeevani OPD enables contactless, risk-free, and safe consultations between a doctor and a patient. It received a huge reception by both patients and doctors.

Source; Times of India