The Union Ministry of Health is sitting tight on a set of guidelines prepared by Indian Space Research Organization for preparing a telemedicine policy. Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Ministry of Communication & Information Technology have been working on the guidelines for having some telemedicine practice norms in the country.

A National Task Force was formed to bring in telemedicine into the mainstream of healthcare delivery. The guidelines are for image transfer, HL-7 (global authority on standards for interoperability of health information technology), DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine), privacy and confidentiality. Now the onus of having a full-fledged policy is on the ministry of health, according to ISRO officials.

Telemedicine in India was pioneered by ISRO in 2001 with 5 nodes. Currently, 396 nodes link 53 speciality hospitals, 16 mobile health vans and 327 remote medical centres including Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Kargil and North East states with ISRO support and connectivity. Eighty percent users are trust hospitals including Sri Satya Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Sankara Nethralaya, Aravind Eye Hospital, Sree Ramachandra Medical Centre, Kanchi Kamakoti Child Trust Hospital. and Madras Diabetic Foundation. Remaining 20 per cent include Narayana Hrudayalaya. The connectivity allows 17 simultaneous consultations to be carried out. There are fixed hours for speciality care consultations and 24/7 access for emergency care. The maximum consultations are for cardiology, ophthalmology, diabetes and radiology. There is ample scope to extend the same for paediatrics and oncology.

“For ISRO, telemedicine is one of its social sector spin-offs to provide healthcare in rural and remote areas. “We have successfully proved its effectiveness and worked at various networks under phase-I and II of the project. But insisting for a policy is not our job”, A Bhaskaranarayana, scientific secretary and director, SCP/FMO, Indian Space Research Organization told Pharmabiz.

To provide the satellite-based telemedicine infrastructure, amounts to an annual expenditure of Rs 2.5 crore for the space major. “We want this service to be used on a non-commercial basis and ISRO is looking at expanding nodes in phase-III phase,” added Bhaskaranarayana.

ISRO tracks its satellite-base healthcare delivery service to monitor how the hospitals are using the service to monitor the level of usage. “Basic issues in telemedicine standards are accountability, confidentiality and privacy. Password protection and structural access control are some of the basic mechanisms to over come these issues,” said Murthy LN Remilla, deputy director, business development (Remote Sensing), Antrix Corporation Limited, the commercial arm of ISRO.

Karnataka government has taken the lead to maximize use of telemedicine at its district hospitals. Under National Rural Health Mission, efforts are on by state governments to utilize the portion of the funds disbursed under this programme for telemedicine where Maharashtra is taking the lead. Further, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai has launched the ‘OncoNet’ to offer post operative advice on pain management to cancer cases and create a platform for patients to exchange information on complications.