New Delhi: India's premier research and development body, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and Hewlett Packard (HP) jointly launched a rapidly deployable and fully integrated cloud-enabled eHealth Center (eHC), which has been co-developed by the two organizations. The first eHC has been successfully implemented and tested in partnership with O P Jindal Gramin Jan Kalyan Sansthan, 3M India, Maharaja Agrasen Medical College (MAMC) and Orion eServices at Chausala village in Kaithal district, Haryana. Over 4,000 patient visits were recorded in the first 100 days of operation.

It is an integral part of the CSIR 12th plan vision for Enabling Affordable Community Health through Information Technology (EACH-IT) and CSIR is providing the required connectivity, medical equipment and infrastructure. HP is providing the required Information technology infrastructure including IT equipment and cloud enabling the electronic medical records (EMR) solution with remote monitoring and consultation and a health policy dashboard. Medical aseptic training, specialized medical consumable kits, electronic stethoscopes, corrosion protection and solar reflective coatings for eHC were provided by 3M India Limited. Orion eServices provided integration of the medical equipment and other devices with the health cloud, and provided training to the eHC personnel.

"This initiative of CSIR and HP creates a platform for the fourth paradigm of science, data-intensive discovery, while bringing affordable healthcare services to the doorstep of people. CSIR, is now positioned to use the eHealth Center data for novel discoveries to create ultra affordable health care products and services," said Professor Samir K Brahmachari, chief mentor CSIR-OSDD unit, director general, CSIR, and secretary, DSIR, ministry of science and technology, Government of India.

The eHealth Center is a fully integrated cloud-enabled healthcare solution that can be set up to provide affordable and preliminary healthcare in remote areas that have no immediate access to primary healthcare. The solution integrates medical instruments that collect basic patient health data with an eHC Health Cloud and enables medical diagnosis through remote consultation using built in video conferencing options.

The basic healthcare infrastructure in rural areas in India is based on the population norms of having one Primary Healthcare Center (PHC) for every 30,000 people and one sub-center for every 5,000 people. However, the existing public health infrastructure is challenged by absence of tools for remote management and monitoring, as well as lack of standardized or accessible health data. A study conducted by the Indian Institute of Public Opinion found that 89 percent of rural Indian patients have to travel an average of eight kilometres to access basic medical treatment and the rest have to travel even further.