Applications of Telemedicine
Telehealth is the only solution for providing secondary and tertiary medical expertise in suburban and rural India. The Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation (ATNF), has taken major initiatives in addressing this issue.More than 25 centres in suburban and rural India are operating as of June 2003. ATNF has helped setup telehealth units for the Armed Forces of India. A four week intensive course on telehealth technology in collaboration with the world renowned Anna university will start from August 2003. This will help generate a core of telehealth professionals. Anna University has 240 engineering colleges distributed throughout suburban and rural Tamilnadu, covering a population of 45 Million. Steps are underway to install telehealth units in these colleges so that the ICT expertise of the colleges can be used to make available health care in suburban and rural Tamilnadu. Negotiations are underway to provide inflight emergency medical services. Several articles have been published in national and international journals.