Common Services Centres (CSC) and the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Tuesday have joined hands to bring outpatient department (OPD) consultations to citizens in rural and remote areas of the country through the network of over 3.74 lakh centres.
The web-based application, ‘eSanjeevani’, developed by the CSC for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), provides free video-based tele-consultation in local language by doctors empanelled in each State, CSC said in a statement.
“CSCs have stepped in to assist citizens during the Covid-19 pandemic, be it through access to telemedicine consultations, banking services and education. The eSanjeevani OPD with its customised platform and a panel of State-level doctors on call will solve the problem of shortage of doctors in rural areas and enhance our efforts to reach out to rural citizens with quality healthcare,” Dinesh Tyagi, Managing Director, CSC, said.
The special purpose vehicle under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said that once the patient visits the CSC centre, the Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE) will register the patient and fill in the details on the OPD app.
The VLE will then receive 16-digit Patient ID and a token. Once the SMS is received, the VLE will log in with patient ID. When the ‘Call Now’ button is activated, the VLE can initiate the video call and help the citizen get consultation. Following the consultation, the VLE can download the e-prescription sent by the doctor.
“The government came up with, telemedicine guidelines during the first wave of the pandemic for providing access to primary healthcare for citizens in rural and remote areas. The guidelines helped us develop and release the eSanjeevani OPD application. By extending eSanjeevani OPD through CSCs, we would be able to make rapid progress in enhancing its reach and scale,” Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, MoHFW, said.