C-DAC: Press Kit - In the News -This Mercury won't raise your blood pressure for sure

It solves the problem of patients traveling long distances for opinion from specialists

Telecom czar Sam Pitroda feels it may just be what the doctor ordered for the crumbling primary health system in rural India.

The Pune-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has devised a "Telemedicine Solution", dubbed "Mercury", that uses the best of telecommunication and information technology to convey the latest in healthcare to patients and health service providers at distant places.

It solves the problem of patients requiring to travel long distances for opinion from specialists, or vice-versa.

Some of the country's leading medical institutes, based in Chandigarh, New Delhi and Lucknow beside states like Kerala, Sikkim and Tripura, are already using the telemedicine technology. In the North-Eastern states of Sikkim and Tripura, state-level hospitals have been linked with Apollo Super Speciality Hospitals.

Usually, a patient's record is available in hard copy, like papers, celluloid films, electro-cardiogram (ECG) strips etc. C-DAC's Mercury solution allows the doctor to quickly put these together into the patient's electronic medical record (EMR) and classify them. Apart from hard copies, an EMR can hold video clips of endoscopies and angiographies as well as audio clips of electro-stethoscopes, dictations etc. "Once the EMR is consolidated, the physician can quickly navigate through it," says Coordinator of Medical Informatics at C-DAC Devashish Pandya.

What 's telemedicine?

It is an integrated technology that facilitates exchange of data, notes and advice through teleconsultation and teleconferencing between doctors and specialists on diagnosis and the course of treatment. Telemedicine was seen by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) as a strategic application in 1997. An early prototype and a proposal was submitted to the Centre. The project was approved in 1999 and the first Telemedicine Solution, Mercury was launched by C-DAC in April 2001. It has since come out with its latest Mercury 2.2 version.

The benefits of the integrated telemedicine solution are manifold, adds Pandya, giving an example of a "typical" telemedicine interaction. "A patient at a remote place goes to a doctor who, after examination, feels the need for a second opinion. The doctor consolidates the relevant clinical data into the patient's EMR and seeks the opinion of a specialist using teleconsultation. A connection to the specialist's workstation is initiated and the patient's data uploaded. The specialist examines the data to make a diagnosis and gets back to the doctor through videoconferencing to discuss, advice and jointly arrive at a course of action. The advice is transmitted back to the doctor."

The technology can be applied to teleradiology, telecardiology, telepathology and just about anything, adds Pandya, and ensures right medical assistance at the right place and the right time, with minimal discomfort.

C-DAC is now working towards taking the technology to the tertiary level by creating a telemedicine network that will link all of Kerala's speciality hospitals with district and taluka hospitals. A Rs.2 Crore telemedicine network project, to be jointly funded by the Centre and the Kerala government, is set to take off in the current financial year, Director of Kerala State Health Services Dr. V.K. Rajan told The Indian Express.