Govt eSanjeevani telemedicine platform records 8 crore teleconsultations

New Delhi: The Government's free telemedicine service eSanjeevani, a cohesive part of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission has clocked eight crore consultations so far, with Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu among the leading 10 states in terms of maximum usage of the service, said the Health Ministry on  Tuesday.

The last one crore consultations were recorded in a remarkable time frame of around five weeks, signalling a wider adoption of telemedicine, the ministry said in a statement.

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The leading 10 states in the usage of the platform are Andhra Pradesh (2,82,42,880), West Bengal (1,00,05,725), Karnataka (94,46,699), Tamil Nadu (87,23,333), Maharashtra (40,70,430), Uttar Pradesh (37,63,092), Madhya Pradesh (32,83,607), Bihar (26,24,482), Telangana (24,52,529), and Gujarat (16,73,888).

An e-health initiative of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, eSanjeevani is a national telemedicine service that strives to provide an alternative to the conventional physical consultations via digital platform.

It consists of two verticals that cater to patients across all states and Union territories successfully making its presence felt in the innermost regions of the nation.

The first vertical, eSanjeevaniAB-HWC, endeavours to bridge rural-urban digital health divide by providing assisted teleconsultations, and ensuring that e-beneficiaries of the Ayushman Bharat scheme are able to avail of the benefits they are entitled to, the statement said.

This vertical operates on a hub-and-spoke model wherein the Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs) set up at state level act as spokes and these are mapped with the hub comprising MBBS/Specialty/Super-Specialty doctors at the zonal level.

With the objective to provide quality health services to a patient residing in rural areas, this model has been successfully implemented in 1,09,748 AB-HWCs and 14,188 hubs, achieving a total of 7,11,58,968 teleconsultations.

The second vertical, eSanjeevaniOPD, caters to citizens in both rural and urban alike. It leverages technology via smartphones, tablets, laptops enabling doctor consultations to be accessible from the patient's residence regardless of location. This platform has acquired 1,144 online OPDs with 2,22,026 specialists, doctors and health workers that have been trained and onboarded.

This platform has an impressive record of having served over 4.34 lakhs patients in one day.

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Mohali, which is providing holistic technical training and support to users, is augmenting the faculties of this vertical to be able to serve up to one million patients per day, the statement said.

The eSanjeevani is a cohesive part of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission, and more than 45,000 Ayushman Bharat Health Account IDs have been generated through it.

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