BRIDGING HEALTH DIVIDE BETWEEN RURAL URBAN AREAS IN INDIA THROUGH SATELLITE BASED TELEMEDICINE NETWORKS

摘要

Telemedicine' is a service reaching the medical expertise available at urban, super speciality hospitals to rural and remote hospitals through the blend of Information Technology (IT) & Communications technologies with Medical Sciences. Realising the health divide between rural and urban areas in India, and continuing its legacy of 'space for the people', Indian Space Agency, ISRO has initiated Telemedicine programme in 2001 for providing healthcare to the un-served and the under-served. The successful experience of SATCom (Satellite Communication) based TELEMEDICINE Programme, which can serve as a model for such programmes in the developing countries. Detailed interviews with the doctors utilising/providing the services, survey through questionnaire to a sample of the practioners as well as to patients and review of different project reports has been utilised to assess the success and utilisation of the facilities created. It has been brought out from the study that, these efforts have started showing results in the form of user satisfaction; the major determinant of success of any service/product. If the growing popularity of the programme and growth of network are visible indications of success, ISRO's Telemedicine Network of 242 nodes can be viewed as a successful programme. More than 250,000 Tele-consultations are done including some life saving instances. The paper discusses the systematic approach followed by ISRO in the areas of - programme planning, managing and implementation, in line with the socio-economic situation of the country and draws a roadmap for the future for bridging the health divide, and plans for integration of different stake holders.