Long Distance Doctor

Though telemedicine is not a new concept in this age of
information revolution, it is yet to tap its true potential in India.

The latest to enter the telemedicine space is Apollo, which is coming up with
telemedicine consultation centers that will offer online health consultancy
services to individuals using PC or laptop connected to webcam. The new
initiative, which the hospital is planning in a big way, will also be launched
by the end of this year. Later, this service will also be available on mobile
phones with videoconferencing facility.

We will first start with delivering services through webcam and later it will
be done through mobile phones as well. Though the exact time of launch has not
been decided yet, we expect the service to be ready within a period of six to
nine months," says Dr Prathap C Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group.

All these plans are being worked out by Healthnet Global Services which was
founded by Dr Reddy. HGS is currently working on the business model for this
service.

We are designing models that will work at the government hospitals including
primary healthcare centers, corporate houses, and large housing societies and
even at select cyber cafes or exclusive telemedicine centers," says Rahul Thapan,
global head, marketing and sales, HGS.

Elaborating on the mechanics of this service, Thapan mentions that this
project would have four main models and the ecosystem around these models is
being worked out. HGS is running successful pilot projects at some corporate
houses.

In case of telemedicine centers, be it a large housing society or a cyber
cafe, a patient can take appointment with the doctor and visit the center
instead of going all the way to the hospital.

Also, we are making arrangements so that a patient is immediately able to
transfer his pathological reports to a doctor online," adds Thapan.

Though the patient will have to get investigation done by third party
diagnosis to begin with; in a years time of the implementation of the service,
HGS is planning to facilitate the investigations to be done at the doorstep of
the patient.

For these services, the patient will have to just log in to our website. We
are integrating payment gateways on this portal with a link to the insurance
company. This enables the patient to make payment instantly and access our
services," says Thapan.

Thapan mentions that most of the work is in an advanced stage and the company
is working on the go-to-market strategy for this project.

Prasoon Srivastava/CIOL

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