An Endeavor towards Telemedicine in Rural Healthcare Delivery System

New Delhi, August 21, 2006, India: Global Convention & Expo on Telemedicine & e–Health is being organized from August 18 – 22, 2006 at The Grand Hotel in New Delhi by Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh with support from key Telemedicine partners.

This international Convention & Expo will highlight the various vital aspects of telemedicine and e- health with a theme on Telemedicine in Rural Healthcare Delivery System. The five days long convention provides a platform to the visionaries and telemedicine ‘Gurus’ across the world. More than 13 countries are participating in the convention like Japan, Switzerland, USA, France, Taiwan, Srilanka, Pakistan, Korea, London, Australia, and Germany. Global bodies like WHO, ITU, IEEE Healthcom, besides BSNL, Bharti Airtel Ltd. TCIL, IITs, SONY and Sun Micro Systems are also participating.

Ministries and Government bodies like Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Ministry of IT & Communication, ISRO, NIC, AIIMS, D.I.T, AMC, ICMR, Army HQ have supported developing healthcare technologies..

According to Dr. S. K. Mishra, Prof. & Head, Department of Endocrine Surgery, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, INDIA India is a vast country of 1. 4 billion population occupying an area of 3,287,268 Sq. kms. It consists of 29 states and 6 Union Territories governed by a federal system. There is no national health insurance policy for the country. Government supported healthcare delivery follows a three tier system and is the primary responsibility of each state. The scale of e-health services in India has been very small so far considering it’s size, mostly limited to medical transcription, health awareness through portals, telemedicine, hospital management system and customer service using the internet.

Sony is committed to support the India Telemedicine Industry. Sony’s integrated audiovisual technology – including high performance video conferencing systems, professional digital video cameras, color monitors, printers and video recorders which have been used for many years to assist quicker, more accurate diagnosis and treatment in hospitals and clinics everywhere. Sony video conferencing systems empowers doctors to ‘meet’ without traveling, performing remote patient assessment, diagnosis by drawing on the skills of remote specialists or exchanging ideas and skills with healthcare professionals worldwide.


From digital content acquisition to distribution, display, printing, storage and archive, Sony can help, manage and exploit the organization’s digital multimedia resources more efficiently.

Sony with a proven track record is already associated with many pioneering healthcare communication projects such as: ISRO Telemedicine Network, Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai, Space Hospital, Chennai, Indian Railways Telemedicine Project, CDAC Telemedicine Network and Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum to name a few.

Sony’s constant commitment to seeking creative solutions in communications technology is reiterated in its Telemedicine and Healthcare Communication initiatives.

Dr. Mishra says, “In principle, telemedicine has bridged the urban rural divide by taking healthcare to interiors of India. There are more than 150 telemedicine initiatives today most of it are supported by Indian Space Research Organisation and IT Ministry. On an average close to 6 (range of 2-10) telemedicine encounters take place per day in each of these centers. These figures are very low considering the dearth of healthcare services in the same areas of India. However, a start has been made. These figures are only going to increase as the technology costs are falling regularly, e.g. telecommunication costs have reduced by 3 times since the last two years.”