Satellite Based Network for Community and Primary Health Centers in Rural Areas
- Paper number
IAC-07-A1.8.06
- Author
Dr. Roop N Bharadwaj, India
- Coauthor
Dr. Ruchi Bharadwaj, India
- Year
2007
- Abstract
India is a very large country in terms of area and population with diverse ethnic and cultural out looks. Majority of population of rural India is living in remote inaccessible areas, difficult mountainous regions, the Thar Desert region and group of Andman and Nicobar Islands etc. Under such difficult terrain conditions and scattered population areas, it has not been possible to provide formal or informal education and health care/medical facilities in majority of areas of the country. The use of space system for Tele- health and Tele- medicine will improve the living standard and ensure better health care system and facilitates to the masses. By taking advantage of satellite based education as well as terrestrial system (complementing each other) to support tele-health , is considered the only possibility to redress the grievances of masses in these difficult areas by importing health related information and setting up community center within reasonable reach for providing first-aid and initial checkup facility from such country centers. These centers are linked by both satellite and territorial media to referral hospital for transmission of basic information like body temperature/blood sugar and blood pressure, ECG data by using distance interface with basic devices like BP instrument, sugar monitoring instrument, ECG machine out put etc. This data will be processed and seen by referral Doctor on round the clock basis or on selected mode in emergencies. The referral hospital will advise the patient at remote side by way of prescriptions of medicine, further diagnosis and or advise for nearest district hospital for further consultation for specific treatment. The Thar Central of Arts health and education, a non government organization (NGO) is actively involved in the establishment of such a network. This network is also proposed to connect Primary Health Center (PHC) setup across India for taking advise from the referral hospital. This network is also intended to be utilized for referral training of nurses, technicians and doctors at primary health center saving costs and travel time. The Thar Central of Arts health and education is in dialog with UNESCO, W.H.O, ITU for their collective support as well as with central and state government departments dealing with health care of masses. This project is being launched progressively from second quarter of 2007. This paper describes the salient features of this network and the expected benefits to the rural populations.
- Abstract document