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ne of the best ways to take information
technology to the masses is by creating applications that impact the everyday life
of citizens. And one of the key areas where the common man looks for succor is the
segment of healthcare.
In fact, providing proper healthcare is a very important priority for any government,
including the Government of India. India should take measures to ensure that its
healthcare system is state-of-the-art and easily accessible by the millions of citizens in
the state.
Most people at some stage have needed healthcare-related advise, medical treatment or
even surgery.
While experts and specialists are certainly available in the larger cities of India,
they are missing from the smaller towns, districts and villages.
This is the trend even across the developed world and India is no exception. An answer
here is tele-medicine, the new pill India may need to swallow to remedy the situation.
If the local village of a state does not have expert doctors for cancer or cardiac problems,
then the local dispensary in the area can be connected through the Internet to the
city’s Civil Hospital or to a renowned medical center. If fact, the modest make-shift
medical facility in the village could even aspire to link up with Asia’s leading hospital
and R&D center, the AIIMS of New Delhi. Expert doctors from AIIMS could then
guide the local medical messiahs sitting in even remote villages on matters of disease
diagnosis and suggested cures.
Doctors in the metros could guide their contemporaries in the smaller towns regarding
what medication to administer, and even advise patients about whether they need to
come down to the larger towns and cities for intensive treatment. Such tele-medicine
projects can be set up in any dispensary in remote villages of India and would prove to
be the biggest boon of IT to the field of healthcare.
The Asian Age January 3, 2001
The Next Big Breakthrough
Will Be Tele-Medicine
