Virtual Round Table 2: Telehealth for Strengthening Health Services Delivery
The George Institute for Global Health, India is organizing a series of online policy roundtable consultations on telehealth & virtual care for patients with chronic conditions. These consultations will bring together experts representing key stakeholders across the entire ecosystem to discuss unmet needs, user expectations, identify barriers and enablers towards a sustainable telehealth ecosystem. We aim to develop a policy brief on “Safe, Effective & Comprehensive Use of Telemedicine” with a focus on chronic conditions to support the implementation and scale up of telemedicine in India and other low- and middle-income country settings.
The second virtual round table is on Telehealth for Strengthening Health Services Delivery.
The experts will discuss:
- Moving from Islands of excellence to coordinated care – role of technology
- Emerging technologies and continuum of care – relevance to Primary Health Care
- Clinical Outcomes and Quality of Care in a telehealth ecosystem
- Investing in digital health for achieving Universal Health Coverage
Discussants:
- Ms. Kavita Narayan FACHE, Technical Advisor, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, India
- Dr. Kieran Walsh, Clinical Director, British Medical Journal, UK
- Dr. Bastiaan Quast, Co-Secretary ITU-WHO Focus Group on AI for Health, ITU, Geneva
- Mr. N.S. Viswanathan, Chief Financial Officer, MFine, India
Moderators:
- Dr. Shenoy Robinson: Healthcare Industry thought leader, Chairperson CII Technical Committee on Health
- Dr. Oommen John: Senior Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health, India
As the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted delivery of routine healthcare delivery services, the Board of Governors (BoG) of the Medical Council of India (MCI) released of Telemedicine Practice guidelines. The challenges posed by the pandemic and unmet need of health services delivery due to the lock down has generated unprecedented interest in the practice of telemedicine in India.
While telemedicine is an excellent and powerful tool for healthcare providers & hospitals to extend care, there are several challenges and opportunities for its sustainability and scale up. Telemedicine and Telehealth need to be comprehensive, safe, practiced ethically and in the best interest of the patient. The policy brief aims to address these critical aspects to create an enabling environment to leverage telehealth as an enabler for strengthening health services delivery and support universal health coverage in India and other low- and middle-income countries.
