Rural Health Care Delivery with ReMeDi Telemedicine Solution
Rural Health Care Delivery with ReMeDi Telemedicine Solution
From HTN
| Project Information | |
|---|---|
| Category | Rural Healthcare |
| Year | 2008 - 2009 |
| Technology | Remote Medical Diagnostics |
| Place | India (Tamil Nadu) |
| Organisation | Neurosynaptic Communications Private Limited, IITM’s Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI), Infrastructure Leasing and Financing Service and a Pharmaceutical Company |
Contents |
Background
India contributes to 16.5% of the total global population and 1/5th of the world’s share of diseases. The 10% of the population still relays on sales of assets or borrowings to fund their expenditure on health, as quality healthcare is unavailable locally. Acute shortage of healthcare workforce with an average of 0.4 doctors per 1000 and 0.32 nurses per 1000 population puts a humongous strain on the Health Status of the Nation. Nearly two-thirds of these doctors are concentrated in urban areas. Quality of care lies compromised in rural areas where the villagers are contesting distance to access a nearest fully functional healthcare facility.
Objective
This project is undertaken by –
Neurosynaptic Communications Pvt Ltd (NCPL)
Leading Pharmaceutical Company
Infrastructure Leasing and Financing Service (IL&FS)
IITM’s Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI)
And its objectives include,
- To provide quality health care by qualified professionals in the villages at affordable costs
- To enable primary/secondary and preventive healthcare in the region besides creating awareness among the rural population on various health hazards, hygiene and controlling outbreak of epidemics
- To Deploy and establish an implementation model for rural tele-healthcare delivery, through low cost telemedicine solution developed by Neurosynaptic Communication Private Limited which can be successfully replicated later in other parts of the country for fulfilling the healthcare needs of the rural population
- To evaluate the cultural acceptability of tele-health in the villages, and to explore various revenue models to make the project self sustainable in a specific period of time
Technology Description
It is possible to provide and support healthcare delivery through a medical device and software application developed by Neurosynaptic Communications Pvt Ltd. (NCPL) known as ReMeDi (Remote Medical Diagnostics). It is a telemedicine provider device which connects the rural villages & remote areas to the urban medicos. This device measures 4 vital signs of human body, viz heart rate, rhythm, body temperature, blood pressure & blood oxygenation. This device revolutionizes the traditional way of diagnosing the patient through ECG, stethoscope, sphygmomanometer & pulse oximeter.
ReMeDi is a device which acts as bridge between a patient at a remote area & a specialist at a different end. It is connected through internet. This device is placed at villages Kiosks centers, where a trained operator assists the patient to get connected to the doctor with the help of ReMeDi & transfer relevant data to the doctor, who uses the information to diagnose & prescribe medicine. This device allows real time communication between the patient & the doctor via videos, audio, text chat. It can
capture pictures of the patient & store them long with the patient’s medical record. The basic requirement of this device is a standard configured computer with internet connection.
Implementation
Considering the Need for Health Care, availability of last mile connectivity and proximity for the implementing agencies, the project was implemented in Sivagangai District, Tamil Nadu.
Learning
The project culminated as of March 2009 and had established 4 centers while closing.
1.It is crucial to have a telemedicine center after understanding the target population, which should practically be around 2500 (600 Households) in that village and the village should also serve as hub to attract neighboring smaller hamlets.
2.Seamless connectivity is an important factor. Having a no interruption consultation with the Doctor is a definite requirement. Rural patients expect no less than its urban counterpart.
3.Although our back-end had doctors, the front-end worker who assists on health activities must be qualified in Health as the rural people understand this much to tell a Healthcare provider apart.
4.In all our centers, we had Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) at each of the center respectively. That did not solve our problem in its entirety. It is quite difficult to find an enterprising and qualified ANM at the rural villages. Even if there are many, they are usually employed in private clinics where they get quite a high salary. So those we employ at a rural setting must definitely be trained frequently and their motivation held high. One must definitely understand working in a rural setting in isolation is not an easy task.
5.The frequently reported health conditions were Upper Respirator Tract Infections (Cough, Cold, Flu etc) and Joint pain (Arthritis). For chronic condition treatment and prognosis, rural patients still preferred to visit the towns.
6.Competition from existing Rural Medical Practitioners (RMPs) in the pilot village can stifle out a telemedicine center’s viability.
7.The perception of the villagers towards this Healthcare Service was positive and they did feel that they benefit from its presence in its neighborhood. However if the center is equipped further to handle counseling services as well conduct lab tests to monitor chronic ailments it could increase its stability.
Last Updated:Anilkroy 07:08, 2 July 2009 (UTC)