Tele-health network Swasth to provide free corona care

Tele-health network Swasth to provide free corona care

Bengaluru/Kolkata: Taking forward the call of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make telemedicine as a national priority in the current stressed times, a coalition of over 100 healthcare specialists have come together to launch Swasth, a nationwide telemedicine platform for free of cost corona care, which digitally connects Indians to the best doctors and wellness providers.

The mobile app-based service leverages India’s technology prowess to deliver equal and affordable healthcare to 1.3 billion people, cutting across geographical and income divides. This indigenous digital healthcare system is being launched at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged traditional service providers.

Swasth facilitates seamless, remote interaction between registered medical practitioners and patients through multiple modes of video and telephony. Swasth deploys AI based triaging to determine the care required, culminating in a digitally signed prescription and treatment advice.

Along with the free consultations, Swasth will also provide services like home quarantine assistance, diagnostics, pharmacies, hospital bed discovery and booking assistance at a subsidized cost.

Kris Gopalakrishnan,a part of the Swasth Governing Council, said, “Swasth has brought together the best of resources in the country to provide free healthcare to bring quick relief during the crisis. Swasth will work to further public health goals and work in coordination with the Medical Council, public health organizations, and the private sector to expand quality healthcare access to the masses. I firmly believe that this crisis is a great opportunity to re-invent healthcare delivery in India.”

All doctors on the Swasth platform are duly verified and undergo specially designed training programs on tele-consultation and COVID-19 clinical protocols.  Swasth is in full compliance with the industry-accepted cyber security norms for healthcare platforms. It uses a defense-in-depth approach to ensure that data is securely transmitted, stored, managed and accessed. Currently, the app supports consultation in Hindi, English and Gujarati and will be expanded to 25 Indian languages.

Dr. Nachiket Mor, a member of the Governing Council, added, “Swasth will make it easy for patients to smoothly access the services they need from its members, and will also enable each of its members to provide a wide range of high quality services to their patients, by giving them access to protocols, technologies, and platforms that are best in class, completely interoperable, and fully compliant with the latest guidelines.”

Swasth is a not-for-profit consortium of 70+ organizations and 200+ volunteers with players from across healthcare providers, tele-health platforms, entrepreneurs, technology experts and doctors with a common goal of building a comprehensive COVID care platform in the short term and of leveraging technology to transform primary healthcare delivery in the medium term. Swasth has received a grant of INR 10 crore ($1.3 million) from the ACT Grants, an umbrella platform of entrepreneurs and investors backing start-ups fighting the pandemic.

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