There is a continuing effort by the state and national governments in India to improve healthcare for rural residents.
The latest effort includes a toll-free helpline 104 in Karnataka, a state in southwest India.
State Health Minister U.T. Khader said the helpline will provide information about the location of the hospitals, suggest medications for illnesses or disorders in the case of emergencies, and take complaints about hospitals and the health department, according to a report from the Deccan Herald newspaper.
The helpline will be launched soon after a short trial period.
In addition, the health ministry will operate “a monitoring cell” unit to address technical issues experienced by state-run hospitals. It will likely resolve any issues within 24 hours, the news report said.
Meanwhile, Karnataka is poised to see benefits from a proposed law that would fill the many vacant positions for doctors and medical officers in state-run hospitals.
Once implemented, the Karnataka Compulsory Service Training by Candidates Completed Medical Course Bill, 2012, will require medical school graduates and post-school graduates to be assigned to rural hospitals for one year.
The bill was approved by the Assembly and the Council and is awaiting the signature of the President of India. If the bill is not approved, new doctors will be fined for not taking rural service assignments – beyond current penalties, Khader said.
All MBBS, PG diploma, PG and superspeciality doctors would serve in rural areas for one year under the bill, a report said.
The bill will especially help fill the vacancies in state hospitals located in rural regions for several medical specialties, Medical Education Minister S A Ramdas said.
As India looks to improve healthcare delivery across the nation, technology is likely to play a key role. Gartner recently reported that healthcare providers in India will spend 57 billion rupees ($980,229,000) on IT products and services in 2013, an increase of 7 percent over 2012 revenue of 53 billion rupees (911,441,000).
Included in the estimate are hospitals, hospital systems, ambulatory services and physicians. Expenses include internal IT, hardware, software, external IT services and telecommunications.
Telecom spending is projected to increase 3.9 percent in 2013 to reach 17.2 billion rupees (U.S. $295 million) in 2013, up from 16.6 billion rupees ($285 million) in 2012. Enterprise communication equipment will be the largest focus of the new spending, Gartner said.
"Rising demand from the growing middle class in India's large cities is fueling growth in private sector healthcare. Large national and state government programs will spur growth along the primary (and secondary) care sector and public health domain," Anurag Gupta, research director at Gartner, said in the statement carried by HealthTechZone. "Hospital information systems, picture archiving and communications systems, electronic health records and mobile technologies will be high on the agenda. We expect to see providers benefit by offering cost effective business models which show quick returns on capital by improving patient coverage and improving quality of care. Health insurance growth will also catalyze technology adoption in healthcare provider segments."
Edited by
Alisen Downey
