eSanjeevani, telemedicine initiative of the Health Ministry, one of the recommended methods the government publicised for patients to get in touch with doctors during the lockdown. It has completed six lakh tele consultations with the last one lakh of them coming in within the last fortnight. The Union Health minister’s eSanjeevani OPD Platform services have enabled patient-to-doctor telemedicine in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a digital modality of healthcare services delivery, eSanjeevani is gradually shaping into a parallel stream for the Indian healthcare delivery system with the number of teleconsultations per day on the platform touching the 8,000-mark in the last few days. The eSanjeevani AB-HWC was launched by the health ministry in November 2019 and it is to be implemented at 1,55,000 Health and Wellness Centres in conjunction with identified medical college hospitals under the central government’s Ayushman Bharat scheme by December 2022.
At present, eSanjeevani is accessible to the people in 27 States/UTs across India and provides eHealth services through more than 6,000 doctors who man 217 online OPDs. States were also extending the reach of specialised health services to the people in smaller towns and rural areas through eSanjeevani (AB-HWC) operational in 4,000 Health & Wellness Centres linked with over 175 hubs [set up at District Hospitals and Medical Colleges]. States like Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Gujarat run eSanjeevani outpatient departments (OPD) for 12 hours a day and seven days a week. The top 10 States to have registered the highest consultations through eSanjeevani and eSanjeevani OPD platforms were Tamil Nadu (2,03,286), Uttar Pradesh (1,68,553), Kerala (48,081), Himachal Pradesh (41,607), Andhra Pradesh (31,749), Madhya Pradesh (21,580), Uttarakhand (21,451), Gujarat (16,346), Karnataka (13,703) and Maharashtra (8,747).
