Telemedicine in India

Following are the a few points which came from a discussion with a friend regarding telemedicine. Although, there are many proposers for telemedicine today in India as a commercial exercise, it is still to come into mainstream, while Teleradiology has gradually matured into a viable business even for India operations. Our own firm (TeleRad Providers) being a prime example, when we started to say in 2007 that India will generate good amount of teleradiology work, no one believed us and it was and is still an uphill task, but key thing, for me is to be able to create a viable, self sustaining system with this kind of business model. And i have a feeling the tipping point for teleradiology in India is not far away. But you need to think out of the box.  But i somehow don’t share the same enthusiasm for telemedicine. For me Phase for Telemedicine in India-should focus on Tele-imageology-- Radiology, Pathology, Dermatology, ECG,etc. Wherein we are able to deliver the final product. Most of patients never meet the radiologist even if he is in the hospital, so it hardly makes a difference to him when radiologist is located remotely, but somehow i dont get the same feeling with physician and hence the gap between tele-imageology and telemedicine. Will a patient or insurance company be willing to reimburse for a remote consultation?  Further we feel in times to come Government and telecom majors will play a part in major development of Telemedicine in India, but to make a viable option people should realise, each task we do should fill a lacuna and it will work. And Doctors not just planners should be integral to this development.