The Central government’s national telemedicine service ‘eSanjeevani’ has proven to be a great success as nearly 90,000 patients daily use it for consultations across the country.

Widely adopted by patients, doctors, and specialists across the country, this online digital mode has so far completed 1.2 crore consultations, sources in the ministry said.

Rolled out on April 13, last year, during the first lockdown imposed in the country when all OPDs were closed

Considering the usefulness of telemedicine and in planning for the expected third wave of Covid-19, the initiative by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is being augmented further to enable 5,00,000 consultations per day.

Andhra Pradesh tops among the leading 10 states in terms of using eSanjeevani service. It was the first state to roll out eSanjeevani AB-HWC services. The other states include Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Kerala.

Till now more than 51,00,000 patients have been served through the eSanjeevaniOPD which hosts more than 430 online OPDs which include general OPDs and speciality OPDs.

Premier tertiary level medical institutions such as AIIMS in Bathinda (Punjab), Bibinagar (Telangana), Kalyani (West Bengal), Rishikesh (Uttarakhand), King George Medical College, Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) provide outpatient health services through eSanjeevaniOPD.

In line with the National Digital Health Mission, this digital initiative will boost the digital health ecosystem in the country. It is an indigenous telemedicine technology developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in Mohali, Punjab.

eSanjeevani is operational through two modes — eSanjeevani AB-HWC (doctor-to-doctor telemedicine platform) and eSanjeevaniOPD (patient-to-doctor telemedicine platform) — which provides outpatient services to citizens while sitting in their homes.

eSanjeevani AB-HWC has completed nearly 67,00,000 consultations and is being implemented at health and wellness centres under the ‘Ayushman Bharat’ scheme.