Welcome to the world of Telemedicine where distance barrier is broken and healthcare is delivered at the doorstep of the needy almost instantly...

The Network:

• The Space Telemedicine Network links multiple hospitals with videoconferencing, tele-pathology and tele-radiology facilities.
• Network Hospitals
  - Primary
  - Secondary
  - Tertiary
• Network ICU’s – e-ICU
• Associate Hospitals

The characteristic features of the Business Model:

1. Unlike the existing telemedicine models, the hub where the specialists from various areas of medicine are available will work round the clock in a typical 24 x 7 model. The participating hospitals need not worry about the time of receiving the patients. Help is always available at hand from the hub of the Company.
2. The specialists in the hub would be interacting with doctors of the participating hospitals and not with paramedics. This would substantially overcome the medico-legal issues.
3. No cost to the participating hospitals/nursing homes – All the telemedicine equipment are to be installed in the respective hospitals by the company itself
4. Company would depute its own technical staff for the operation of the telemedicine equipment in the participating hospitals
5. Hospital staff would be trained by the Company for using the telemedicine equipment and for familiarizing with the connectivity procedures with the central hub for a nominal fee. The connectivity procedures would be standardized and simplified in such a manner that accessing the hub would be just as easy as making a telephone call by the hospital doctor sitting in his cabin
6. The company’s hub would be situated in the heart of the city enabling easy access for the specialists. The hub would have top class connectivity infrastructure for video conferencing, image transmission etc.
   

The striking features of difference from the existing telemedicine projects

Though the characteristics of the business model of the company bring out clearly the difference between the existing telemedicine projects and that of the company, for purposes of emphasis they are once again punctuated hereunder:

1. Professional to Professional (Doctor to Doctor) interaction and NOT Doctor to Paramedical staff interaction
2. Main objective is to deliver quality healthcare at the point of need with least cost to the patients and NOT to bring in business or develop business for institutions executing the telemedicine project
3. Connectivity of number of hospitals with the hub and NOT connectivity of few hospitals with the main hospital executing the telemedicine project
4. The business model envisaged would neither fleece the end patients nor be fully charitable leading to dilution of quality of healthcare

Criteria for success of Telemedicine in Indian Conditions

For the telemedicine programme to be effective and ‘successful’ in India, the following criteria will have to be met:

1. It should benefit the un reached
2. It should benefit a larger community
3. Medical data transfer be error-free and reliable
4. Medial technology should be user-friendly
5. There should be a complete system — properly equipped patient-end, super specialists, links, etc.
6. There should be proper storage and retrieval system for the medical data
7. The medico-legal provisions should be thoroughly thought through
8. Its economic sustainability should be looked into from the beginning
9. Maintenance aspects are important but often neglected at the planning stage. This can lead early death of the project after birth
10. It should be able to meet the felt and observed needs of the community

Further the following positive developments in India in the past few years also ensure success of the telemedicine project taken up by the Company now.

1. Bandwidth has increased manifold
2. Connectivity is more easier with remote and rural areas now
3. The cost of telecom equipment have come down very substantially
4. Optical Fibre Cable Network is available throughout the length and breadth of the country
5. Connectivity costs have drastically come down
6. New generation of doctors are more comfortable in group practice including obtaining opinions from other doctors/specialists
7. Ministry of Healthcare and Family Planning and Ministry of Communication and Technology have taken major initiatives in recent years for the promotion of telemedicine in India
8. Smooth convergence of several different communication technologies is reality in India now. Internet is a very good example of convergence of different media of communication. It combines the characteristics of mass media, telecommunications and computers. It is not just a sum of different technologies. It is a new communication technology and this has paved way for a variety of applications and one such application is telemedicine.
9. Communications technologies have also become very user friendly and it is not surprising that a number of villagers are as conversant with the use of cell phones as any other person in the city. Are not children operating the personal computers with lot of ease?

The company would take telemedicine into the following areas:

• Healthcare for Industrial/commercial concerns
• Domiciliary treatment
• Preventive healthcare
• Continuous Medical Education for medical practitioners
• Training of industrial workers/policemen/laymen
• Basic life support