The Ministry of Health's eSanjeevani OPD platform has completed three lakh tele-consultations within six months of its launch, with four states -- Tami Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Uttarakhand -- accounting for nearly 90 percent of use by beneficiaries.

For our comprehensive coverage and latest updates on COVID-19 click here.

The eSanjeevani OPD services have enabled patient-to-doctor telemedicine in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ministry said. "This has helped in containing the spread of COVID-19 by ensuring physical distancing and has simultaneously enabled provisions for non-COVID essential healthcare. The number of high tele-consultations is a testimony of its popularity among the citizens," the ministry said.

With 1,29,801 digital interactions, Tamil Nadu has held the largest number of tele-consultations so far. Tamil Nadu had been a pioneer in the field registering 32,035 OPD consultations by August 9 and 56,346 consultations by the 19th of the same month. The state had registered nearly one lakh consultations (97,204) by September 8. "The platform had provided essential healthcare to the state, one of the worst affected by COVID-19, at a critical time when conventional medicine was perceived to be risky owing to the nature of the infectious disease," the ministry said.

Tami Nadu is followed by Uttar Pradesh (96,151 consultations), Kerala (32,921 consultations) and Uttarakhand (10,391 consultations). These four states account for 2,69,264 tele-consultations (89.75% of total consultations). With on boarding of Gujarat and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir on eSanjeevani OPD and Chhattisgarh on eSanjeevani (Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centres -- AB-HWC), the total number of states and UTs using eSanjeevani has gone up to 26. Around 4,600 doctors have been trained on eSanjeevani OPD and on an average over 6,000 consultations per day are recorded in eSanjeevani's national network.

The eSanjeevani platform has enabled two types of telemedicine services viz. Doctor-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani) and Patient-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani OPD) Tele-consultations. The former is being implemented through Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centre (AB-HWC). It aims to implement tele-consultation in all 1.5 lakh HWCs in conjunction with identified Medical College hospitals in a 'Hub and Spoke' model. States have identified and set up dedicated 'Hubs' in Medical Colleges and District hospitals to provide tele-consultation services to 'Spokes', i.e SHCs, PHCs and HWCs.

The Health Ministry rolled out the second tele-consultation service 'eSanjeevani OPD' enabling patient-to-doctor telemedicine owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020. "This has proved a boon in containing the spread of coronavirus infection while simultaneously enabling provisions for non-COVID essential healthcare," the ministry said.