The Union health ministry announced last month a National Medical College Network (NMCN) would be set up in the country as part of its “e-health including telemedicine” programme. This initiative is part of its plan in creating a nationwide telemedicine infrastructure linking all medical colleges and other related institutions. The project is expected to be totally funded for five years by the health ministry and after which the state governments may take over. The ministry is in the process of deciding an implementation agency for NMCN. The selected agency will have to set up the telemedicine infrastructure as per the approved architecture and install network, hardware & software and run the services. The project will have a central hub housing the data centre which will be designated as National Resource Centre (NRC) and this will be networked with five regional hubs to be called as Regional Resource Centres (RRCs) located at different parts of the country. These RRCs will be networked with medical colleges in that region. One of the key objectives of this project is to provide specialist tele consultations to patients in matters like cardiology, pathology, radiology, oncology, ophthalmology, etc. The health ministry with the support of Apollo Hospitals launched yet another health initiative, Social Endeavour for Health And Telemedicine (SEHAT) last month. SEHAT is expected to connect 60,000 common service centres across the country to a network for providing healthcare access to people in any parts of the country.

In a vast country like India with a huge burden of sick population and poor health infrastructure, access to healthcare has become a serious challenge especially for the people living in semi urban and rural areas. With a poor doctor patient ratio, the government has limited options to address this growing health crisis in the country today. Establishment of a nationwide telemedicine network is perhaps the best option to overcome this dilemma. A comprehensive telemedicine network has not been seriously attempted in the country so far. In fact, telemedicine can provide rural population access for basic, specialty and super specialty consultations. Since 80 per cent of medical conditions do not require a doctor’s physical presence immediately, they can be dealt with telemedicine. Most lifestyle and communicable diseases fall into this category. The two telemedicine initiatives launched by the Union health ministry during last month are indeed a step in the right direction. But, to make the concept of tele consultation with medical practitioners a success, active involvement of state governments and private hospital chains is necessary.