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CDR develops new telemedicine model

Our Bureau

HYDERABAD, Feb. 25

CDR HOSPITALS has developed a new telemedicine model for emergency care called eEmCare, to render cost-effective and better medical services to people in remote areas on real time basis. This will free doctors and patients from the traditional constraint s of place and time.

eEmCare was achieved by connecting the remote care unit (RCU) to Mission Critical Centre (MCC) at a tertiary hospital through Virtual Private Network, using Vsat technology.

Developed jointly by drcdr eCare & CDR Hospitals, eEmCare works through real-time monitoring of vital signs and nursing assessment of emergency patients admitted to hospital in remote areas.

Dr C. Dayakar Reddy, Chairman, CDR group, told presspersons that the new development was expected to bring down the cost of patient care. While it cost around Rs 5,000-6,000 per day for an emergency care patient in any speciality hospital, the RCU treatm ent through eEmCare would work out to Rs 2,500.

Emergency care infrastructure is a costly proposition involving specialist doctors, trained manpower and modern technology but this can be circumvented by leveraging emerging technologies in telemedicine.

With eEmCare, patient care assumes new dimensions, and monitoring doctors and nurses in an apex hospital can receive information about patients in a far-off town and extend expert guidance for treatment in time.

Eight patients in intensive care for different reasons in any hospital can be linked to MCC, where round-the-clock monitoring of the patient's vital parameters takes place.

The technology is indigenously developed. The equipment such as cardiac monitoring, central station, software, computers, Vsat and supporting systems cost around Rs 30 lakh. drcdr eCare wants to install it free of cost. Dr Dayakar Reddy said the returns would come from it on an earn-and-pay basis.

The company wants to network 25 hospitals in various district headquarters and towns in the State over the next three years.