BHUBANESWAR: Even as Odisha Telemedicine Network (OTN) has connected all the districts of the State, the focus has now shifted to broaden the outreach by involving private organisations, hospitals and other agencies in the field. The Telemedicine Society of India (TSI), Odisha Chapter, has come forward to partner with the private sector to take telemedicine systems to blocks, panchayats and villages. It will be part of the initiative to ensure health care accessible to people in most remote and far-flung pockets of the State. “All the 30 district headquarters hospitals have been connected under OTN and linked to the Government-run medical colleges and hospitals, who in turn are connected to SGPGIMS, Lucknow, and AIIMS, New Delhi. The challenge now is to take the network to the doorsteps of the people and here the private medical colleges and hospitals, health care facilities, organisations and even corporate entities have a major role to play. The TSI offers to join hands with such sections to carry the work forward,” Secretary, TSI, and nodal officer of OTN Prof. BN Mohanty said here on Saturday. He was addressing the first State conference of the Odisha chapter of TSI here. It is being held in association with the Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (SoA) University to discuss the developments in telemedicine and the way forward. Inaugurating the two-day conference, former Chief Justice of India Gopal Ballav Patnaik said telemedicine has the potential to revolutionise health care system by overcoming the barriers of time and distance. With not enough dedicated health professionals willing to work in rural areas, the last mile connectivity has not been achieved in the country. In this scenario, telemedicine has a pivotal role to play. “This is a system which not only reduces cost of service delivery but also provides easy and quick access to a specialist. It reduces travel time and ensures cost-effective post-treatment consultation besides strengthening the hands of the administration in health care delivery,” Justice Patnaik observed. More than 200 delegates, comprising international and national telemedicine experts, scientists from ISRO, which has spearheaded telemedicine in the country, health care organisations, technology services companies and doctors took part in the conference. President, TSI, BS Bedi, president, TSI Odisha, Dr SN Panda, DMET Prof. PK Dash and Vice-Chancellor, SoA University, Prof. RP Mohanty were present.
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