India’s eHealth journey has been very successful and has crossed a landmark milestone. eSanjeevani telemedicine service of the Health Ministry recently crossed 1 million (10 lakh) tele-consultations. The eSanjeevani, a national telemedicine service under Ayushman Bharat health initiative aims to connect health and wellness institutes across the country. Under this initiative patients can interact with doctors and seek consultation over audio and video calls without having to step out of their house during the pandemic. 

Telemedicine entails delivery of health services from a distance using internet and it not only extends the reach of health services but also improves quality of health services besides saving time and money. The roll out of eSanjeevani in India was one of the first digital transformation in the delivery of health services at national scale and also boosted the digital health ecosystem in the country during the pandemic.

In 28 States and Union Territories, eSanjeevani initiative of Health Ministry is serving in two streams - eSanjeevani AB-HWC and eSanjeevani OPD. The eSanjeevani AB-HWC enables doctor to doctor teleconsultations and is being used at around 6000 Health & Wellness Centres which are being served by specialists and doctors in around 240 hubs which have been set up by States in District Hospitals or Medical Colleges etc. Over 20,000 paramedics, doctors and specialists have been trained to use eSanjeevani AB-HWC.

 The second stream eSanjeevani OPD is or providing remote health services to patients in the confines of their homes. eSanjeevani OPD enables contactless, risk-free, and safe consultations between a doctor and a patient. Around 8000 doctors have been trained and on boarded on eSanjeevani OPD and on an average around 1500 doctors practice telemedicine daily in around 225 online OPDs of which 190 are specialty OPDs and around 30 are general OPDs. Of late, daily eSanjeevani has been serving around 14,000 patients across the country.

Over 550 districts of India are availing eSanjeevani and over 10% of the users of eSanjeevani are aged 60 and above. Given that eSanjeevani is a better and safer option to seek medical consultation in this pandemic, public has started preferring telemedicine over visiting hospital OPDs for consulting a doctor.

Many States have designed innovative applications around eSanjeevaniOPD. In Kerala, eSanjeevaniOPD is being used for providing health services to the inmates of Palakkad District Jail, in Himachal Pradesh too it is being rolled out in old age homes. Kerala has already set up OPDs on eSanjeevani OPD for providing services of Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram – District Early Intervention Centres for its populace. Each of these 14 online OPDs has a team comprising of psychologist, special educator, speech therapist and a physiotherapist who collectively address common issues pertaining to child development and their future health.

The efforts of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare are being complimented by State Governments, by establishing a robust digital health ecosystem comprising of IT savvy human and infrastructural resources to boost the adoption of eSanjeevani. The Health Informatics group of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in Mohali is providing end-to-end technical services including development, implementation, operations, of eSanjeevani OPD besides training clinicians.  The Health Ministry in consultation with the States and C-DAC Mohali is consistently working towards enriching features and functionalities in eSanjeevani to empower patients and doctors even more.

The top ten States with highest consultations through eSanjeevani and eSanjeevaniOPD platforms are Tamil Nadu (319507), Uttar Pradesh (268889), Madhya Pradesh (70838), Gujarat (63601), Kerala (62797), Himachal Pradesh (49224), Andhra Pradesh (39853), Karnataka (32693), Uttarakhand (31910) and Maharashtra (12635).