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DoctorAnywhere.com patches with TCCI for telemedicine

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DQW Bureau
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Primary Health Care Centers (PHCs) in the country have had little cause for cheer. Absence of advanced medical equipment, lack of good connectivity to city hospitals and good transportation facilities have rendered these centers as ineffective bodies to deal with the health problems of rural populace.

Villagers usually had to rush at least 20-kms away to the nearest hospital for good treatment or go the city in case advice of specialists was required. Maharashtra has around 88 such PHCs, each managing about five to six sub-centers catering to a population of 30,000. PHCs are managed by about two doctors and are equipped with basic medical facilities like operation theatres, laboratory and a pharmacy. However, this system still failed to tackle cases where an expert opinion was required.

In an ambitious pilot project probably undertaken for the first time in the country,

www.DoctorAnywhere.com--a Pune based Web enabled doctor to doctor tele-consultation service has partnered with the Tata Council for Community Initiatives (TCCI) to offer telemedicine for rural healthcare in

Pune.

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The country's first ever telemedicine enabled primary healthcare center was inaugurated by Guy Harris of the International Society for Telemedicine at Wagholi, a small village located 20-kms from Pune recently.

The project uses Internet based technology to connect PHCs in Maharashtra with key specialists across various medical specialties. The project consists of connecting all the 88 PHCs. In the first phase, the service will be pilot tested by connecting three PHCs around Pune with the Zilla Parishad, Pune and the key senior doctors in Maharashtra who will be offering their consultation services. The three centers selected for the pilot are Wagholi, Chakan and Paud, which are located around

Pune.

The telemedicine service is being provided by DoctorAnywhere, which has developed proprietary medical software based on Internet technology. After the installation of the software, the referring doctor creates a new case with the software and attaches images or investigative reports. The doctor submits the case to the specialists of choice using the Internet. The specialist downloads the case and after checking sends an export opinion in 24 hours. The referring doctor closes the case by downloading the expert opinion. 

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Chetan Shetty, CEO, DoctorAnywhere.com said that they were putting IT to use to touch the common man. Through this, the patient gets the benefit of an expert opinion without the bother of travel and the related costs involved. For the doctor this would mean getting advice before referring to the teaching hospital. It will also mean learning on the job and getting an export opinion on location. The specialist gets access to a variety of cases for using his or her expertise, Shetty pointed out. Currently, patients get access to the expert opinion free of cost since they would be linked to specialist government doctors.

"Our telemedicine solution is a classic case of marrying the present day technology to present day needs and providing it at low affordable cost. A 24x365 working hours call center, that guarantees a response from the consultant within 36 hours," he stated. 

TCCI has provided three Pentium computers for the pilot project. The service team of DoctorAnywhere has conducted an extensive training program for doctors. These doctors along with the DoctorAnywhere team would train key users of the computer and the software at each of the health centers. A supervisor and nurse would be trained for enable usage during all hours of the day and night.

In the next phase, the learning of this project would be deployed to all other PHCs in the state. Shetty revealed that the Andhra Pradesh government has evinced keen interest in the project.

Ruksun DoctorAnywhere.com-the first Web-based telemedicine company to be accredited with an ISO 9001 certificate from DNV, Netherlands has established links with more than 1,500 doctors from various lines of medicine and across 160 towns and cities. Shetty said that the primary objective to ensure that this service is used more extensively. The idea is to create an internet-centric healthcare network in the country including the back-end services, Shetty said.

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