Over 1 crore teleconsultations conducted under Centre's eSanjeevani service

"eSanjeevani has been used by the public in 701 districts across India and over 56 per cent of the patients on eSanjeevani are females. Of the 1 crore patients served by eSanjeevani, around 0.5 per cent are 80 years and older, and around 18 per cent are 20 years or younger," the ministry said in the statement.

The National Telemedicine Service is relatively more popular in tier II and tier III cities. The top 10 districts with highest consultations are Chittoor, East Godavari, Guntur, Nellore, West Godavari, Krishna, Prakasam, Anantapur, Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh and Salem in Tamil Nadu.

The top 10 states which have registered highest consultations through eSanjeevani and eSanjeevani OPD platforms are Andhra Pradesh (27,51,271), Karnataka (19,39,444), Tamil Nadu (14,76,227), Uttar Pradesh (12,32,627), Gujarat (4,16,221), Madhya Pradesh (3,69,175), Bihar (3,43,811), Maharashtra (3,31,737), Kerala (2,37,973) and Uttarakhand (2,26,436), the statement mentioned.

The virtual platform has been quickly adopted by patients, doctors and specialists across the country and it is evident from the fact that it has shown astounding growth of over 1,000 per cent in the last 10 months, it said.

The National Telemedicine Service which was used for 1,60,807 tele-consultations in September, 2020 enabled 16,50,822 tele-consultations in the month of July this year.

"It is noteworthy that even when the internet penetration in the country is below 50 per cent, this innovative digital health initiative of the health ministry has been able to defeat the tyranny of geography, distance and time, and establish itself as a parallel stream of healthcare services delivery," the statement said.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had in 2018 conceptualized the use of telemedicine to aid the implementation of Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme.

Accordingly, eSanjeevani developed by the Mohali branch of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) was customized and eSanjeevani AB-HWC was rolled out in 2019 as a doctor-to-doctor telemedicine platform.

On April 13, 2020, eSanjeevani OPD was launched to facilitate the provision of health services for patients in the confines of their homes.

The eSanjeevani OPD -- the second variant of the health ministry's mammoth telemedicine initiative -- was initially rolled out as a minimalistic platform with one general OPD per state.

Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand were the early adopters of this first-of-its-kind of telemedicine initiative.

During the second wave of COVID 19, the Ministry of Defence too had roped in ex-AFMS doctors to launch national online defence services OPD on eSanjeevani OPD.

In many states, eSanjeevani OPD is enabling provision of health services delivery for more than 12 hours a day and seven days a week.

"eSanjeevani OPD services can be accessed through web browser as well as Android application. The iOS application is scheduled to be launched very soon," the statement said.

Considering the potential, benefits and widespread acceptance of the eSanjeevani initiative and in wake of the impending third wave of COVID-19, the central government in its Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package has earmarked financial support for expanding the initiative to boost its capacities to provide 5 lakh tele-consultations per day, it added.