Tele-medicine facility for ex-servicemen residing in remote areas launched
Vijay Mohan
Chandigarh, July 30
An Electronic Services e-Health Assistance and Tele-consultation (E-SeHAT) system has been developed to provide medical assistance to beneficiaries of the Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) treatment without the need to visit polyclinics or hospitals.
The pilot project was launched by the Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare on Tuesday at 12 ECHS polyclinics in Delhi, Baramulla, Imphal, Churachandpur, Dimapur and Aizawal. The pan-India coverage of the project is scheduled to be complete by November 2024, a defence spokesperson said.
The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Mohali, had developed the SeHAT-OPD module for the Ministry of Defence to enable teleconsultation for serving armed forces personnel and their dependents, which was implemented successfully at many locations across the country.
However, the ECHS database of the veterans and their dependents was not integrated with the SeHAT-OPD software. This has now been brought about through the development of some additional features related to e-Prescription. Various modules of the software such as medical records and e-Prescription have been synced with the ECHS database.
As part of the E-SeHAT project, IT hardware and equipment have been provided to all 427 ECHS polyclinics across the country and training sessions have been conducted for the staff to enable them to render medical consultancy online.
During the next phase, pre-consultation check of vitals and home delivery of medicines has been planned. Referral to hospitals by medical officers is scheduled to be implemented by August 20, 2024.
E-SeHAT aims to provide health care services to Ex-Servicemen and their dependents through safe and structured video based clinical consultation in line with the tele-medicines practice guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The consultation can be through video, audio and chat at the same time.
The system will be highly beneficial for veterans and families residing in remote areas or at places at a long distance from polyclinics. Its features include cloud-based real time consultancy, better utilisation of human resources and cross reference by medical specialists and sharing health records with doctors.
