Report

Report of 1st Annual Conference of Telemedicine Society of India (MahaTelemedicon 13) held on 1st September, 2013 at Pune, Maharashtra

The inaugural conference of The Telemedicine Society of India, Maharashtra Chapter was organized by TSI Maharashtra Chapter jointly with the IMA Pune branch on 1st Sept, 2013 at Dr. Nitu Mandke IMA House Pune. Over 200 delegates attended the Conference.The CME started off with a welcome address by Dr.Prakash Marathe Secretary IMA Pune branch.He called upon Dr Bharati Dhore Patil Immediate Past President IMA and Shri L.S.Satyamurthy President Elect TSI to chair the morning session. Abhijit Gupta opened the session with a demonstration of Praxify. The product generated a lot of interest and enthusiasm amongst the audience.

Another novel demonstration Health Risk Assessment (HRA) for lifestyle diseases through Telemedicine was made by Dr.B.S.Ratta.A volunteer from the audience underwent the HRA and his report was received on his mobile phone which was shown to the delegates subsequently. Dr. Ratta showed how this tool could be used to detect early cases of Obesity, Diabetes, Hypertension, increased Lipids and cardiac disorders at an affordable cost by holding mass camps at work site.

The conference was inaugurated by Dr. P.K. Sinha Senior Director (R&D) and High Performance Computing) at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-Dac)Pune, in the presence of Guest of Honour Dr N.K. Dhamija, Deputy Commissioner Training and Nodal Officer Telemedicine , Ministry of Health and Family Welfare(MOH&FW) ,Government of India, New Delhi. The other dignitaries present on the dais for the Lighting of Lamp ceremony were office bearers of Telemedicine Society of India and IMA dignitaries Dr. Prakash Marathe and Dr. Bharati Dhorepatil. Dr P.K Sinha appreciated the role of TSI and spoke on development of cloud computing technology for development of Electronic Health Record (EHR) for every citizen of India linking it to Aadhar cards. With the EHR being central to most health informatics applications, several countries have initiated programs for implementing national EHR infrastructures. Building and implementing such a national EHR infrastructure requires an understanding of healthcare standards, coding systems, and standard frameworks, each of which may vary across borders and/or come from a myriad of sources. He then spoke on Mercury Nimbus- CDAC’s Cloud Enabled EMR/EHR and Telemedicine Suite. In fact Mercury Nimbus was launched in this conference and was well accepted by the audience. Mercury Nimbus was then demonstrated by Gaur Sunder and Praphul Kolte. It consists of three tools; Mercury on Cloud, Cloud Repository and Mercury for Android, specially tailored to cloud/clustered infrastructure. It can be used in Telemedicine scenarios like doctors working in multiple clinics, groups of clinicians working, clinicians at remote end with clinicians at specialist end and HSP-to-HSP interaction.

Dr N.K. Dhamija and Dr. S.K. Mishra shared their views on the Central Government initiatives in Telemedicine and healthcare sector including National Medical College Network. Dr. N.K. Dhamija stated that MoH&FW, Govt. of India is laying major emphasis on telemedicine application and there is a huge budget provision for the same to help in bridging the gap between Rural and Urban health divide. He also highlighted the fact that Tele-health Act is on the anvil and National Task Force for standards in Telemedicine will be rejuvenated. Dr. B.N. Mohanty spoke on the Odisha TM Network and it’s functioning in the state of Odisha. He demonstrated how three Government Medical Colleges in the state have taken on all the districts of Odisha to provide medical care through Telemedicine. Dr. Suptendra Nath Sarbadhikari spoke on National Health Portal. He mentioned that it will now be possible for Indian Doctors to upload useful clinical data and interesting medical case reports on the National Health Portal (NHP). This portal is likely to be inaugurated by October,2013.

The Afternoon session was chaired by Dr N.K.Dhamija and Dr Suparna Telang. Presentations on Tele-Psychiatry were made by Dr. Suparna Telang and Dr. Animish Chavan. They made a video presentation on use of Tele Psychiatry – SCARF in Chennai. They emphasized that it saves time and money for the patient and the service provider. They discussed various revenue models and a simple software to run a Tele-Psychiatry program. This was followed by a presentation made on Tele Ophthalmology by Dr. Sangeeta Wagh and Dr. Suchetra Kulkarni. Through video-conference with Aravind Eye Hospital of Madurai, they showed how from Ophthalmic camps the images of retina were transferred for opinion to the base hospital and from there treatment offered to the camps. They also made a video presentation on Retinopathy of Prematurity. Mr. B.S. Bedi , Advisor, CDAC and Immediate Past President of TSI spoke on EMR Standardization and it’s Inter-operability. Shri L.S. Satyamurthy, president-elect of TSI and ex-director of Telemedicine, ISRO/Deptt. of Space spoke on telemedicine as a service that can be successfully be adopted for the societal benefits in bringing healthcare to the rural and the under-served population, both in India and in other developing countries. Dr. D.B. Kadam, Professor of Medicine, Sassoon General Hospital and Nodal Officer, Telemedicine (SGH),NRHM(Maharashtra) spoke on how Maharashtra has come on to the Map of Telemedicine. He highlighted the Government Medical College Network and showcased the TM program at Sassoon General Hospital. This was well appreciated by one and all.

In the concluding session convenor Dr B.S.Ratta proposed vote of thanks.