Andhra Pradesh Vaidya Vidhana Parishad (APVVP) is planning to establish telemedicine linkages to more centres. The new proposal will connect district hospital at Nalgonda with Hyderabad-based Kamineni hospitals, and district hospital at Khammam with Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad.

APVVP had earlier established similar linkages with public-private partnerships (PPP) in the state between district hospitals at Eluru and Karimnagar with Apollo Hospitals, district hospitals at Mahaboobnagar and Rajamundry with Care Foundation, and district hospital at Nizamabad with NIMS, Hyderabad.

The broad PPP model has the agreement of providing super specialty care to the needy patients as per the guidelines given by the government. In this the infrastructure support is from APVVP whereas the equipment investment costs and consultancy services to a tune of Rs 1.5 crores are by private sector at each of the facility.

APVVP was established in the year 1986 under an act of legislation. It deals with the middle level hospitals of bed strengths ranging from 30 to 350. These institutions are also referred to as secondary hospitals or first referral hospitals. There are 159 such hospitals in the state. These hospitals operate in the form of district hospitals, area hospitals and community health centres.

All major and minor equipment will be supplied to the listed hospitals. The bed capacity in these hospitals in the year 2001 was 14, 480, which has increased to around 14, 540 as of now. These hospitals in the current calendar year had so far conducted 65, 433 major surgeries, and the bed occupancy rate had been 91 per cent.