Skip to main content

Telemedicine - Your Doctor Is Just a Smart Phone Call, Away

There was no legislation on the practice of telemedicine till now in India, but the recent release of guidelines on March 25, 2020 by the Health Ministry plus the Covid 19 pandemic has fast tracked this concept to become reality

By Namrata Kohli 

India is seeing a new way in which patients seek medical help from doctors and healthcare practitioners. With fear of contracting infections in the wake of Covid 19 pandemic, people are refraining from physically going to the hospitals and are instead consulting their doctors through video, phone and internet-based platforms like web, chat, apps. No wonder then, telemedicine has got a shot in the arm with the likes of Medicity in Gurugram seeing ten times jump in average daily remote consultations while Practo has registered a 100% increase week-on-week, and Portea medical has been receiving 100 COVID-19 related queries a day.

Teleconsult is especially popular for lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and chronic endocrinological disorders such as hypothyroidism which need a regular, almost quarterly check-up. This can be done remotely as most of the times there is some dosage adjustment based on reports and telemedicine can be a great tool for time management for both doctor and the patient. Mental health is another big area what with the social stigma associated with “seeing” a psychiatrist.

There is high demand for “second opinion” consultations in telemedicine where people submit and upload all reports and take advice especially for ailments such as cancer. For hospitals that have super specialists, there is a huge emerging “doctor to doctor” consult where one doctor (eg a general physician) is able to take advise over a niche area from a super specialist (such as a head and neck cancer specialist). A lot of patients come from other cities and after the treatment, the subsequent follow up can be also done remotely. 

https://www.business-standard.com/article/pf/using-telemedicine-to-get-critical-medical-advice-in-times-of-the-lockdown-120041701165_1.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Telemedicine to the aid of home-bound patients in the time of Covid-19

Telemedicine in covid-19 times: You can get to the doctor almost anytime, anywhere, be it on your screen, via voice or plain text for a lower price than in-person consult Namrata Kohli   |   New Delhi Telehealth is bridging the gap between patient and physicians. The physician can now virtually visit the stay-at-home patient and heal from a distance Telemedicine in covid-19 times:  When 37-year-old Priyanka was down with fever and dry cough, she decided to consult a doctor over a WhatsApp call before giving her blood sample for an RT-PCR test. Based on her symptoms, the physician alerted her that it wasn't a mild Covid infection but a moderate one. His diagnosis was confirmed when the test report showed a viral load count of 20. “The massive benefits of telemedicine became evident during the pandemic,” says Priyanka’s doctor, New Delhi-based consultant physician Dr Arvind Kumar. “Everything is about time and if my patients have complications late at ni...
30 comments
Read more

Smartwatch: A timepiece, health monitor and fitness coach rolled into one

This small wearable device checks your blood pressure, heart rate and sleep quality, apart from monitoring your workouts Namrata Kohli   |   New Delhi Casio G-Shock’s G-Squad GBD-H1000 (Rs 39,995) has five sensors: optical heart rate, thermo, magnetic, blood pressure and acceleration, along with solar, USB charging, Bluetooth connectivity and GPS It might astound you to know that all it takes is just 30 seconds to download an ECG report that is acceptable in hospitals and clinics in India. That's the kind of experience 45-year-old Mumbaikar Aayush Vats had while checking his health parameters on an Apple  smartwatch  he recently bought. With the ongoing festive sale at e-commerce portals, he managed a handsome discount to acquire a Series 3 originally priced at Rs 20,900, for just Rs 16,900. Corona times have led to a spurt in health devices and  smartwatches  have found a new audience. Says Ali Rizvi, Director, Garmin India: “Earlier  smartwatche...
8 comments
Read more

Covid Cure: Is Plasma Therapy the big find of the Century

A new plasma therapy along with a negative ion therapy claims to have cured Covid 19 patients within a short span of forty-eight hours. How far are we from nailing the solution in India By Namrata Kohli It’s called the Hyperion Plasma Treatment and has been administered successfully to over three thousand patients across China, Germany and UAE. This new treatment is proving to be far more effective than the conventional plasma treatment and is invented by a team of scientists from European Medical Association (EMA), together with Redcliffe Lifesciences and Sapio Analytics. For some time now, doctors have been trying every anti-viral drug and antibiotic combination to treat the Coronavirus infected patients. They then moved towards a non-drug plasma therapy which simply put, uses the serum of plasma from a recovered individual which is then injected into the blood stream of an infected individual. Plasma therapy is nothing new, says Prof. Dr Amina Ather, part of the inventor team- ...
4 comments
Read more