As part of pushing the e-health programmes, the health ministry has prepared a programme – National Medical College Network--- to link the government medical colleges in the country having national knowledge network so that larger number of patients get tertiary-level care.

The medical colleges will work as resource centres and government hospitals will be attached to them. Besides, special facilities for treatment of heart diseases, cancer and other serious ailments would also be developed at medical colleges. Another benefit of this network will be tele-continuing medical education (CME) under the project which is to be launched soon.

During the current five year plan, the Government will be spending Rs.122 crore for different e-health programmes including telemedicine. Under National Optical Fibre Network (Ministry of Communications & IT) Initiative, three sites are under pilot projects of telemedicine, source said.

Many of tertiary and secondary care medical institutions across the country, both in government and private sector, are involved in telemedicine healthcare delivery services. Department of Electronics and Information Technology and Department of Space established the telemedicine facilities initially in various states in the country.

To facilitate cancer care, all the Regional Cancer Centres along with four peripheral hospitals at district level were networked under OncoNET project. Tele-ophthalmology projects have been deployed in most of the states empowering Vision Centres to link expert eye centres.

Health has been declared as a Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) and already a number of measures were taken. Proposals are under consideration for more such initiatives, sources in the health ministry said.

Another programme is called Epicentre which is used for TB programme data reporting by Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme. Strategic Information Management System is used for HIV/AIDS data reporting by National AIDS Control Organisation. There is also Mother Child Tracking System (MCTS), recently introduced to use under NRHM for name based tracking of mother and children.