Dayanand Medical College starts noble venture of telemedicine as pilot project

Ludhiana, September 22, 2018: Dayanand Medical College (DMC) has started noble venture of telemedicine as a pilot project with rural(at Pohir) and urban(at Shimla Puri) centers of DMC, wherein the experienced experts of DMC will render advice to the patients in complex and challenging cases.

This will help to reduce the gap between the specialist doctors and the patients. After the completion of this project, DMC will be offering its services to the far-flung areas of Punjab through NGOs and charitable hospitals. This is a first of its own kind project which has been initiated by DMC.

Inauguration was formally done by Secretary of DMCH Managing Society-Sh Prem Kumar Gupta. Also present on the occasion were Principal Dr Sandeep Puri, Vice Principal Dr. Gurpreet Singh Wander, Professor of Cardiology Dr. Bishav Mohan , Medical Supdts Dr Sandeep Sharma and Dr Ashwani Chaudhary & Professor & Head of Community Medicine Dr Anurag Chaudhary, Professor of Community Medicine Dr Sarit Sharma.

In his message, Sh Gupta lauded the efforts of faculty members in making this facility functional at rural and urban health

centers for the patients. He said that the managing society of DMCH had a vision of starting telemedicine facility to make the healthcare services more accessible to the patients of the rural and remote areas who are not able to get the opinion from specialist.

Dr Sandeep puri Principal, DMC&H highlighted that telemedicine has potential to expand access and improve the quality of rural healthcare. It will reduce burdens for patients, such as travel expenses, consultation cost, this facility will help to provide accessible specialty care, and improve monitoring, less time consuming, and better communications.

Earlier also, Hero DMC Heart Institute has launched ECG project for people suffering from heart ailments and those who don’t have access to proper medical and cardiac care. For such patients, a specific ‘Whats App group’ is made on which the patients can send their ECG reports and can get consultation from a group of qualified cardiologists, from AIIMS, India and US without any fee or charges. Till now more than 5000 patients have been benefitted from this services.

It has also an endless effort of Hero DMC Heart Institute, to inform the public about various precautionary measures to keep heart diseases at bay and for this, lectures, seminars and free cardiac check up camps are held at regular intervals. In the year 2014 Hero DMC Heart Institute started facility of sending daily SMS, about proper precautions to be adopted for better heart care to registered mobile users.

Dr Anurag Chaudhary Professor & Head of Community Medicine Department will co-ordinate this project from both the centers. Dr Chaudhary said this is patient center approach and will help to increase the satisfaction level also. Telemedicine literally means "distance healing" which will helpful to healing the patients health problems.

Telemedicine:- Telemedicine is the exchange of medical information from one location to another using electronic communication, which improves patient health status. In simple words, telemedicine is a system where patients visit a telemedicine clinic and are brought face-to-face with medical experts across India through a laptop that allows patients and doctors to see one another.

Telemedicine has multiple applications and can be used for different services, which includes wireless tools, email, two-way video, smartphones, and other methods of telecommunications technology.

Now a days hospitals extending their services to patients in remote locations, telemedicine has grown rapidly and has become an integrated part of specialty departments, hospitals, private doctor offices, home health care, and the consumer’s residence and workplace.

Why Telemedicine:

In such a scenario, telemedicine can play a pivotal role in giving advice to the primary health care provider of the patient. It gives an opportunity to seek medical advice from a renowned doctor who is sitting in Ludhiana and the patient can connect from a remote village of Punjab.

There has been a tremendous increase in the diseases-like kidney, gastrointestinal, cardiac and neuro. This calls for a specialized care and attention, however, there is a logistical limitation for a patient to reach a super specialist and this limitation solved by using telemedicine.