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Coming soon, a quick response tele-medicine hub at Chandigarh’s GMSH-16
Chandigarh health department to hire nine dedicated specialist doctors for facility to help lower wait times and workload on doctors at physical OPDs
Come August, Government Multi-Specialty Hospital (GMSH), Sector 16, is set to get a dedicated tele-medicine hub, complete with nine specialist doctors who will only attend to only tele-consultation patients.
While the hospital has been providing specialist consultations through telephone under central government’s E-sanjeevani OPD scheme since June last year, the absence of a tele-medicine hub has presented a host of issues.
Firstly, specialist doctors are simultaneously attending to both walk-in OPD patients and those consulting them over the phone, usually 100 a day, leading to overburdening and stress. Then while the doctors attend to tele-medicine or walk-in patients, the other set stays waiting on the phone or in long queues outside.
Under the e-Sanjeevani OPD platform – accessed via https://esanjeevaniopd.in/ or mobile app – patients, through audio or video call, are connected to doctors at health and wellness centres (HWCs) in case of general OPD or to GMSH-16 in case of specialist consultations.
On visiting these facilities in person, if required, patients can further get consultation from super-specialist doctors at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, or Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), through audio and video conferencing.
Besides the district hospitals, the e-Sanjeevani model is being followed at 29 HWCs in Chandigarh, offering services for nine specialities, including medicine, general surgery, skin, psychiatry, eye, orthopaedics and paediatrics.
“Most of the time, doctors are already handling a huge rush of patients in physical OPDs, while more are standing in queue outside. Amid this, tele-medicine patients also try to connect with the doctors through video and audio calls, making things all the more hectic. A dedicated tele-medicine hub will tackle this,” said Dr Suman Singh, director, health services, Chandigarh.
“The hub will provide quicker services to the tele-medicine patients and also lower doctors’ workload. We are in the process of hiring nine specialist doctors for the hub. They will not attend physical OPDs. Besides streamlining the process, this will also ensure availability of tele-consultations 24 hours a day,” said Yashpal Garg, UT health secretary.
PGIMER to also hire staff for tele-medicine hub
Along with GMSH-16, PGIMER is also in the process of hiring doctors and technicians for its tele-medicine hub. At present, a team of doctors from various departments of the institute provides super-specialist consultations to hospitals and dispensaries in Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, and Jammu and Kashmir, among other states. Here too, doctors are also attending to physical OPDs, leading to delayed responses to queries over the phone.
