The Hindu Business Line : ISRO, hospitals bet big on telemedicine

(from left) Dr Devi Shetty, MD, Narayana Hrudayalaya; Prof S. Yunkap Kwankam, World Health Organisation, Geneva; Mr G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO; Mr T.N. Chaturvedi, Governor of Karnataka; and Prof Rifat Latifi, University of Arizona, USA, at the inauguration of International Telemedicine Conference in Bangalore on Thursday. — G.R.N. Somashekar

Bangalore , March 17

TELEMEDICINE in the country is poised for a big leap with various stakeholders and service providers multiplying their efforts in e-health for rural and remote areas. Speakers at the inauguration of ISRO-led telemedicine conference, INTELEMEDINDIA 2005, indicated as much.

As satellite-based connectivity provider, ISRO expects to increase the number of TM points from about 80 remote district hospitals linked to 29 superspecialty hospitals. Its Chairman, Mr Madhavan Nair, said the other mode was the multi-purpose village resource centre for e-services, which is set to grow from the current 100 to 1,000 next year.

ISRO has also got the hardware-transmission package cost reduced by 20 per cent in less than three years. This is a good opportunity to reach space-based applications to the community and also extend it to mobile equipment vans, dedicated terminals, high-tech service deliveries and TM-trained doctors, Mr Nair said at the seminar attended by over 700 national and international delegates.

"There is not stopping with telemedicine which will evolve into a multipurpose system as with the VRS in bridging the health access gap between the rich and the poor," he said.

According to Dr Devi Shetty, cardiac surgeon and MD of Narayana Hrudayalaya, which was among the first set of hospitals to use telemedicine to diagnose and treat heart patients, the 27 TM centres in the country are the largest e-health centres in the world today and this would be extended to other areas related to heart. 16,000 heart patients have been treated the e-way so far. He said his mission is to see that 30,000 GPs should have access to telemedicine centres.

Getting an X-ray taken in a government hospital was the most complex process in diagnosis; to overcome this, NH has been using digital X-ray and producing affordable digital X-ray plates - which cost some Rs 37,000 a piece - in a tie-up with Texas Instruments. In a tie-up with IGNOU, NH would begin diploma courses in community cardiology for MBBS graduates and aim to produce 5000 cardiologists in a short period.

Prof S. Yunkap Kwankam of WHO said the organisation was finalising an e-health strategy to help poor countries and it would cover norms, training, applications; and health information systems. Bangalore with its IT expertise could play a vital role in popularising TM, he said.

The meet is expected to generate inputs to initiate and expand TM facilities and is attended by hardware, connectivity providers, rural and health planners.

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