
Telemedicine: A Paradigm Shift in Healthcare in the wake of COVID-19 in India
Correspondence Address :Vinoth Chellaiyan,
Chettinad Hospital and Research Institute, Kelambakkam, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
E-mail: drchellaiyan@gmail.com
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected the delivery of essential healthcare services in India. The massive disruption of the routine healthcare services had been circumvented to a certain extent with the application of telemedicine. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of India has issued regulatory guidelines and approved Registered Medical Practitioners (RMP) to adopt the usage of teleconsultation service which can be real-time or asynchronous to minimise the risk of disease transmission. The commentary provides an in-depth review of the regulatory guidelines implemented by the Government of India and discusses the inherent structural and fundamental challenges associated with its wide scale adoption, accessibility, and utilisation. Though the Government of India had issued national guidelines to promote safe and effective usage of telemedicine practice, there remains certain primary structural, technical and institutional challenges regarding expansion of uninterrupted services to periurban and rural peripheral health facilities and its nationwide sustainability. The article demands the attention of the policymakers and relevant stakeholders to identify the inherent bottlenecks intrinsic to the guidelines and amend the regulatory framework accordingly to ensure its long-term sustainability.
Accessibility, Health service, Sustainability, Teleconsultation
DOI: 10.7860/JCDR/2020/46459.14295
Date of Submission: Aug 25, 2020
Date of Peer Review: Sep 18, 2020
Date of Acceptance: Oct 20, 2020
Date of Publishing: Dec 15, 2020
AUTHOR DECLARATION:
• Financial or Other Competing Interests: None
• Was Ethics Committee Approval obtained for this study? NA
• Was informed consent obtained from the subjects involved in the study? NA
• For any images presented appropriate consent has been obtained from the subjects. NA
PLAGIARISM CHECKING METHODS:
• Plagiarism X-checker: Sep 05, 2020
• Manual Googling: Oct 03, 2020
• iThenticate Software: Nov 20, 2020 (8%)
ETYMOLOGY: Author Origin
- Emerging Sources Citation Index (Web of Science, thomsonreuters)
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- Academic Search Complete Database
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
- Embase
- EBSCOhost
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- HINARI Access to Research in Health Programme
- Indian Science Abstracts (ISA)
- Journal seek Database
- Popline (reproductive health literature)
- www.omnimedicalsearch.com