For the last two years, experts at Sassoon’s telemedicine centre has been offering advice during medical emergencies in peripheral areas. Not only are details like history of patients and reports of investigations regarding ailments sent by mail to the telemedicine centre at Sassoon but video-conference technique is routinely used to manage the complication, says Dr D J Kulkarni, medical superintendent at the hospital.
According to Dr D B Kadam, Head of the Department of Medicine at Sassoon hospital, at least 20-25 such patients are managed on a daily basis at the telemedicine centre. Most of the patients’ reports are sent from civil hospitals in Ahmednagar and Satara and the sub-district hospital at Karad. Plans are on to extend services to 30 sub-district hospitals, National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) officials told Newsline.
The facility is at present linked to 28 district hospitals in the state under the NRHM project. The specialty centres of the telemedicine centre are at Mumbai’s J J Hospital, KEM hospital, Nanavati hospital, Pune’s Sassoon General Hospital and at the civic hospitals in Aurangabad and Nagpur. “In case of a dilemma while handling patients in an emergency or if the patient fails to respond to treatment, experts are consulted at the specialty centres for a second opinion,” say NRHM officials.
Telemedicine is a rapidly developing application wherein medical information is transferred through interactive audio-visual media for the purpose of consulting and sometimes remote medical procedures or examinations. It may be as simple as two health professionals discussing a case over telephone, or as complex as using satellite technology and video-conference equipment to conduct a real-time consultation between medical specialists at two different destinations, says Kadam.
“The basic aim is to help the doctor and patient for better diagnosis and treatment especially in villages and talukas where experts like radiologists and dermatologists are not available. Through this facility, we can avoid shifting of patients from remote areas by treating them online,” he adds.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Anuradha Mascarenhas
Quelle/Source: Expressindia, 07.08.2011
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