State awarded for telemedicine facilities

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, February 15

The government of Himachal Pradesh has won Indian Express Heath Care award 2017 for its telemedicine programme started in 2015. The program includes providing quality and affordable healthcare services to communities in Lahaul and Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh.

The award was given considering the good work done under this pioneering initiative, which is one of its kind in the country, saving lives at 14,000 feet. The programme was conceptualized by the NHM, Department of Health, Govt of HP. Apollo Hospitals Telemedicine group was identified as the Public Private Partner.

The programme, has been running for two years, benefiting over 6,000 patients through specialty and super-speciality tele-consultations and 450 patients under tele-emergency services.The Tele Health Services program was recognised and published by National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC), Government of India.

The project is unique in its innovation, as the Government has used technology, to augment some of the inherent challenges in health care provisioning, existing in the current public health system. Using Electronic Medical Record (EMR) patient profiling was done, and the patient information was transmitted to specialist doctors across urban the cities of Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad, to provide specialty, super-specialty and emergency services. The human resource working under the project was provided training on different modalities of health care including Basic Life Support and Advanced Life Support (ALS) at Apollo Hospitals.