The Tamil Nadu Government, which currently has six district hospitals connected with telemedicine, will establish the facility in all its district hospitals soon, according to V K Subburaj, secretary, Department of Health & Family Welfare.

Delivering a lecture at the Session on Telemedicine, "Bridging the Gap- Enhancing the Quality & Efficiency of Patient Care" organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Tuesday, Subburaj, said that the disease burden of the country is very large, thanks to its huge population.

However, the number of medical colleges and the output of doctors are very less. The biggest challenge for the government is the shortage of doctors and specialists. "The government is focusing more on providing multi-skills for MBBS doctors, equipping to provide immediate healthcare services in various specialties," he said.

Subburaj further said that India loses about four million children in a month for want of better neo-natal healthcare facility and added that multi-skilling of MBBS doctors, combined with telemedicine would help reduce the mortality rate, especially in states that are densely populated.

He said that unauthorized absence of doctors is becoming a major problem for the government. He urged the doctors to come forward to work in the rural areas and contribute to the development of rural people and its economy.

In his address, Professor K Ganapathy, president, Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation, said that telemedicine is the ultimate societal application of information and communication technology. About 620 million people live in rural India and most of them do not have access to specialised healthcare services. An average Indian spends about 12 per cent of his income on health and 82 per cent of healthcare expenditure are borne by people.

Talking about the reach of mobile phones, he said that 56 per cent of Chennai population owns mobile phones and this percentage is as high as 69 per cent in New Delhi. About 29 per cent of the population - over 290 million people - in India has access to mobile phones. This throws open a huge opportunity to introduce telemedicine via mobile phones, especially when 3G mobile technologies and applications are going to be allowed in the country.

Professor Ganapathy said in India there are 500 telemedicine units. However, only a few of them provide full-fledged tele-consultations. India has set up National Task Force on Telemedicine and National Institute of Medical Informatics and Telemedicine and the country finds that the human resource is the challenge and not the technology to implement telemedicine successfully.

In his address, Ron Emerson, chairman, American Telemedicine Association Industry Council, said that the US industry will work closely with the Indian industry in establishing standards in medical informatics, and help India create regulatory changes necessary for the smooth implementation of telemedicine.

In his opening remarks, C R Swaminathan, Deputy Chairman, CII Southern Region and chief executive, PSG Institutions, said that although 75 per cent of people live in rural India, more than 75 per cent of doctors and health infrastructure are based in cities. Telemedicine may turn out to be the cheapest, as well as the fastest way to bridge the rural-urban divide, he said.

He said that the revenue of Indian healthcare industry is over US$ 18 billion, which is more than five per cent of the GDP. This is expected to grow more than US$45 to 60 billion by 2012. It is expected to employ around 9 million people. The number of medical tourists visiting India has increased from 10,000 in 2001 to 1,00,000 in 2005, Swaminathan said.