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Telemedicine refers to the use of electronic communication technologies to provide
clinical care. Telemedicine enables a physician or specialist at one site to deliver
e-health, diagnose patients, give intra-operative assistance, provide therapy
or consult with another physicians or paramedical personnel at a remote site. The
aim of Telemedicine is to provide expert-based health care to understaffed remote
medical sites and to provide advanced emergency care through modern telecommunication
and information technologies. There are many different disciplines in telemedicine
such as Teleradiology, Telepathology, Teleconsultation, Teleconferencing and Telepsychiatry.
Telemedicine can be defined as the investigation, monitoring and management of patients,
using systems which allow ready access to expert advice and to patient information,
no matter where the patient or relevant information is located. Telemedicine involves
the online transfer of records, on-line help and home care from one location to
another. Earlier there were face-to-face communications that were free flowing and
spontaneous. But these days through telemedicine the patients and doctors
can interact through videoconferencing to another doctors sitting at another
site. Increasingly, computer technology will allow much of the work currently being
carried out in hospital, to be carried out in people's homes, in an effort not only
to improve the efficiency and standards of patient care, but also to reduce its
cost drastically.
Telemedicine
is not another technology but a process that focuses on the individual to provide
greater access and increased knowledge on e-health. It empowers the individual
to manage his/her own personal e-health, and integrates information to allow the smooth
flow of services and products throughout the health care system.
There are four main components
of Telematics, all of which are applicable to e-health:
- Remote database access/update
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Tele-monitoring
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Tele-Video Conferencing
-
Case Handling/Message Passing
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Telemedicine can benefit isolated communities and areas where access to specialized
care is difficult or near to impossible. In terms of attaining equitable health
care in remote and isolated areas, telemedicine software applications are of particular interest
in several ways:
- Physician referrals can be reduced by as much as 80% by connecting primary care
physicians to specialists.
- Can improve access to specialty care in some areas, particularly in rural and hilly
areas.
- Can improve the quality of care to patients through more timely delivery of medical
services to the point of care.
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Our existing telemedicine application named
Sanjeevani has been upgraded to a web based application e-Sanjeevani (using .Net Technology). e-Sanjeevani
is a result of core R&D effort in the area of Healthcare, Medical Informatics at C-DAC
Mohali, India, developed state-of-art telemedicine technology software package
named "Sanjeevani" in-house under the expert guidance of the doctors in PGI. Telemedicine
Application "Sanjeevani" deployed at following location in India:
- PGIMER Chandigarh
- AIIMS New Delhi
- SGPGI Lucknow
- IGMC Shimla
- PGIMS Rohtak
- SCBMC Cuttack
Our second effort
was establishing telemedicine sites
at different locations in the state of Himachal Pradesh, which is a remote
and hilly state of India. C-DAC is further working on implementation of telemedicine technology in
rural areas of
Punjab.
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