Telemedicine: Union Govt’s ‘eSanjeevani’ Completes 30 Lakh Consultations, Serving 35,000 Patients Each Day

The Government of India’s National Telemedicine Service, eSanjeevani, has crossed another milestone by completing 30 lakh consultations. Currently, the National Telemedicine Service is operational in 31 states and union territories with daily over 35,000 patients across the country using this innovative digital medium to seek health services.

The National Telemedicine Service, set up by the ministry of health and family welfare comprises two variants of eSanjeevani. First is doctor to doctor (eSanjeevani AB-HWC) telemedicine platform that is based on hub and spoke models. Another is a patient to doctor telemedicine platform (eSanjeevani OPD) which provides outpatient services to the citizens in the confines of their homes.

The eSanjeevani AB-HWC is being implemented at health and wellness centres under Ayushman Bharat Scheme, and by December 2022 it will be made operational at 1,55,000 health and wellness Centres across India, the ministry of health and family welfare said in a statement.

eSanjeevani OPD provides digital health services to the citizens through more than 250 online OPDs. Over 220 of these online OPDs are specialist OPDs and the rest are general OPDs. eSanjeevani OPD was rolled out on 13 April 2020 during the first lockdown in the country when all the OPDs were closed. So far, over 21 lakh patients were served through eSanjeevani OPD.

Quick and widespread adoption of eSanjeevani reflects that a significant proportion of outpatient visits can be clinically managed remotely. Patients with no urgent medical conditions are using eSanjeevani without having to expose themselves to the risk of being infected and without compromising quality of care.

Nationally, over 31,000 doctors and paramedics have been trained and on boarded eSanjeevani, of these around 14,000 doctors practice telemedicine on eSanjeevani OPD and over 17,000 doctors and Community Health Officers use eSanjeevani AB-HWC.