eSanjeevani

What is eSanjeevani?

• eSanjeevani is a telemedicine service of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
• eSanjeevani is actually the first of its kind of digital transformation in the delivery of health services at the national level by a developing country.
• Now the country has crossed a landmark milestone in its eHealth journey. e Sanjeevani telemedicine service in India records 1 million (10 lakh) teleconsultations.
• Now the number of consultations per day has increased to around 14,000.
• It is used by patients in over 550 districts
• Around 10% of the users of eSanjeevani are aged 60 and above.
• The use of eSanjeevani has increased massively during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has brought a huge digital transformation in the delivery of health services and had also boosted the digital health ecosystem in the country.
• The State governments are also complementing the efforts of the Health Ministry, by establishing a robust digital health ecosystem that comprises IT savvy infrastructural and human resources to boost up the adoption of eSanjeevani.

What is the importance of Telemedicine?

It entails the delivery of health services from a distance using the internet and it not only extends the reach of health services but also improves the quality of health services besides saving money and time.

Over 1/4^th of the total patients have used eSanjeevani more than once during these pandemic times and this is evident to the fact that the public has started preferring telemedicine over visiting hospital OPDs for consulting a doctor.

What are the two streams in which eSanjeevani is served?

 eSanjeevani is serving in two streams in 28 States and Union Territories.

• eSanjeevaniAB-HWC
• eSanjeevaniOPD

What is eSanjeevaniAB-HWC?

• It enables the doctor to doctor teleconsultations
• This facility is being used by around 6000 Health & Wellness Centres. These centers are served by doctors and specialists in around 240 hubs which are set up by states in Medical Colleges or District Hospitals etc.
• Around 20,000 doctors, specialists and paramedics have been trained to use eSanjeevaniAB-HWC.

What is eSanjeevaniOPD?

• eSanjeevaniOPD facility enables risk-free, contactless, and safe consultations between the doctor and the patient.
• eSanjeevaniOPD is quite famous among both the doctors and the patients.
• Now around 8000 doctors have been trained and on-boarded on eSanjeevaniOPD
• On average around 1500 doctors daily practice telemedicine in around 225 online OPDs, out of the 190 are specialty OPDs and around 30 are general OPDs.
• In Kerala, eSanjeevaniOPD is used for providing health services to the inmates of Palakkad District Jail.
• In Himachal Pradesh, it is being rolled out in old age homes.
• The adoption of eSanjeevaniOPD services across India has led to the launch of many wide ranges of specialty and super-specialty OPDs including alternative medical systems like naturopathy and AYUSH.
• Kerala has already set up OPDs on eSanjeevaniOPD for providing services of Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram – District Early Intervention Centre’s to its residents.
• All the 14 onlineOPDs has a team comprising of a special educator, speech therapist, psychologist, and a physiotherapist who would collectively address common problems pertaining to child development and their health.
• The Health Informatics group of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in Mohali, Punjab is providing end-to-end technical services including implementation, development, and operations, of eSanjeevaniOPD apart from training clinicians.

The top ten states where there are the highest consultations through eSanjeevani and eSanjeevaniOPD platforms are:

1. Tamil Nadu,
2. Uttar Pradesh,
3. Madhya Pradesh,
4. Gujarat,
5. Kerala,
6. Himachal Pradesh,
7. Andhra Pradesh,
8. Karnataka,
9. Uttarakhand and
10. Maharashtra