The Medical Council of India and the NITI Aayog have developed new guidelines released on March 25, 2020 for registered medical practitioners to deliver consultations to patients via telemedicine.
Telemedicine
- Telemedicine involves the use of telecom and virtual technology to deliver health care outside of traditional health-care facilities.
- It is the essential delivery of health care services where distance is a critical factor — comes in.
- At least one doctor is needed for a population of 1,000, according to WHO guidelines.
- Telemedicine, thus, holds significance for countries like India that have low doctor-to-patient ratios.
About the guidelines
- The guidelines aim to empower registered doctors to reach out to patients safely using technologies for the exchange of valid information.
- This information can be used for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries, research and evaluation and for continuing the education of healthcare providers.
- The guidelines have empowered medical practitioners. They have, however, also imposed many restrictions.
- Registered medical practitioners, for instance, have to take the patient’s consent.
- If the patient denies her consent, however, the practitioner cannot insist that the patient to go in for telemedicine.
How telemedicine can help against COVID-19?
- Telemedicine can help bridging the gap between people, physicians and health systems, enabling everyone, especially symptomatic patients, to stay at home and communicate with physicians through virtual channels.
- It thus helps reducing the spread of the virus to mass populations and the medical staff on the frontlines.
- It can help provide routine care for patients with chronic diseases who are at high risk if exposed to the virus.
Limitations
- The out-of-hospital management is has not been yet established in India. Perhaps a ‘crisis-based’ evolution of telemedicine can help find local testing centers and also manage the flow of patients seeking a test.
- However, for a smaller subset of higher risk patients, the clinical course may not be consistent with conventional telemedicine.
- These patients often present with a more serious condition require rapid hospitalization.
- Telemedicine hasn’t traditionally been used in response to public health crises. Many health practitioners are not equipped to deliver care in this way.
- Another issue is access to broadband – some hospitals struggle with running a quality connection within their facilities and now we are faced with taking this to potential new areas of care, such as an outside tent.
