COVID-19 and the Prospects for Telemedicine in India

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Restrictions in movements of all nonessential services have been curtailed in India and worldwide owing to the current COVID-19 situation. This potentiates the use of telemedicine to provide healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. Telemedicine which was initially primitive and not very well explored is now emerging to be a safe option for healthcare delivery in the interim. Recently, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in India has come up with a set of guidelines that eases both the doctors and patients. The clarity in regulations provides a boost to the existing private startups that were operating under a grey area until now and would also attract investors to provide the required push to establish these services in India at a national level. Hence, if accepted as a standard model of healthcare delivery in India, telemedicine will help address the COVID-19 situation as well as provide healthcare access in remote areas. Furthermore, with millions of people already using the “Aarogya Setu” mobile app, it serves as a potential platform to integrate a national telemedicine service.