How Apollo Hospitals is transforming rural healthcare with technology

By Shishir Kumar

Posted on October 3, 2016

Rural healthcare is something Mr. Narendra Modi government aims to make better in this decade and with the current patient to doctor ratio falling behind WHO norms technology becomes the only savior.

Apollo by using right technology aims to solve this problem and render better healthcare. In a first of its kind initiative in the country, to leverage the benefits of digitalization of healthcare, the Government of Andhra Pradesh undertook an initiative to upgrade the Urban Primary Health Centres (UPHC) into eUPHCs through a well-thought out PPP model enabling access to Specialist doctors through Telemedicine and diagnostics in the local neighborhoods itself. Further on, Apollo Hospitals, one of Asia’s most trusted integrated healthcare providers, extended its commitment to rural and remote healthcare by providing services at 164 such eUPHCs across 9 districts in Andhra Pradesh to manage & operate for a period of three years along with the government of Andhra Pradesh.

This will be termed as a paradigm change on how healthcare is being delivered in India. Technology as a enabler is set to transform the healthcare scenario in urban healthcare centers across the state with state of art medical facility. Apart for providing healthcare services under NHM(National Health Mission) guidelines eUPHC’s enables the following services.

ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS
All the patient records will be digitized at eUPHC’s which helps patients to keep track of their health history while doctors can make informed decisions. This also helps governments in understanding the demographic health data which aids in effective implementation of health programs. Healthcare analytics will help in prediction of epidemic outbreaks as well as to understand the disease burden the state is going through.

TELEMEDICINE
While getting a general practitioner for a rural practice itself is tough, The idea of specialist will be far beyond imagination. Telemedicine will solve this problem and under this initiative Apollo is providing 5 different specialty consultations via Video conferencing  bringing super specialty care to eUPHC’s.

DIAGNOSTICS
All the eUPHC’s are equipped with state of art laboratory that facilitates Bio chemistry and Hematology investigations on site making it easy for doctors to make preliminary diagnosis and suggest appropriate treatment regimen.

THE TEAM BEHIND
 

The project is headed by Mr. Vikram Thaploo, CEO of Apollo Hospitals(Apollo Telemedicine) under the leadership of Sangita Reddy JMD Apollo Hospitals Group. Read more news.

How Apollo Hospitals is transforming rural healthcare with technology