Telemedicine Programme is an innovative process
of synergising benefits of Satellite communication technology and information
technology with Biomedical Engineering and Medical Sciences to deliver the
health care services to the remote, distant and under served regions of the
country.
Providing healthcare to India's over one billion population of which about 75
percent live in villages, is a formidable task. About 75 percent of the doctors
practice in urban areas and 23 percent in semi-urban areas. This leaves just 2
percent of the qualified doctors, who are attached to about 23,000 primary
health and 3000 community health centers, to attend to 70 percent of the
population living in villages.
ISRO’s telemedicine pilot project was started in the year 2001 with the
aim of introducing the telemedicine facility to the grass root level population
as a part of proof of concept technology demonstration. The telemedicine
facility connects the remote District Hospitals/Health Centres with Super
Specialty Hospitals in cities for providing expert consultation to the needy
and underserved population.
Telemedicine initiative project consist of linking through INSAT / EDUSAT
satellites, the remote rural district hospitals in different states like Jammu,
Kashmir & Ladakh in north, Offshore Islands of Andaman and Lakshadweep,
North Eastern States, various states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Orrisa,
Chattisgarh including some of the remote and tribal districts in the main land
States across the country.
