Apollo Hospitals group has joined hands with Swedish telecom major Ericsson to bridge the gap in the rural healthcare scenario in India. Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation (ATNF), an Apollo Hospitals group company, has signed a MoU with Ericsson here on Thursday.
More than a million people, predominantly women and children, die each year in India because of a lack of healthcare. A further 700 million people have no access to specialist healthcare, as 80% of specialists live in cities. At the same time, the teledensity in India is increasing at a phenomenal rate, said Mats Granryd, president of Ericsson India, said.
Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, he said, ?mobility has proven to be a major catalyst for social and economic empowerment and a key ingredient in helping to bridge the digital divide. Through our ongoing partnership with Apollo, we are putting an ecosystem in place to support telemedicine applications once the 3G network is deployed.?
The initiative builds on Ericsson and Apollo?s previous collaboration in 2007 for the ?Gramijyoti? project which showcased the benefits of mobile broadband applications across 18 villages and 15 towns in rural areas, he said.
Later addressing the conference, Pratap C Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospitals group, said ?with the availability of wireless technology, mobile health will be integrated into the healthcare delivery system. The new mantra could well be the ?healthcare for anyone, anywhere, anytime?. ?The concept of distance becomes irrelevant and this tie up will help reaching the unreachable across the country, particularly in the rural areas.?
According to Reddy, this is the time tested method. With new applications through small devices it is possible to cover 70% of the rural population with good healthcare services, he said further.
As per the MoU, ATNF will provide expertise in telemedicine in the form of applications that provide instant medical advice remotely over the network. This will increase access to quality healthcare once the HSPA network is in place and sets the stage for the creation of a stable ecosystem, based on WCDMA/HSPA technology to support a range of innovative services.
