Keonics, KTwo expands rural telemedicine project in Bihar

The National Rural Tele Medicine Ayush Network project includes the setting up of telemedicine delivery systems in 212 Primary Health Centers, 38 District Hospitals and a central unit at Patna

Keonics, a Karnataka government-owned enterprise, and KTwo Technology Solutions, a healthcare products company is expanding the rural telemedicine project National Rural Tele Medicine Ayush Network (NARTAN) to Bihar. The project includes the setting up of telemedicine delivery systems in 212 Primary Health Centers (PHC), 38 District Hospitals (DH) and a central unit at Patna.

Bihar's National Rural Tele Medicine Ayush Network (NARTAN) is an initiative that comes as a boon to the state's rural population that has long remained deprived of primary healthcare facilities. The lack of infrastructure and inadequate number of doctors have driven the State Health Society in the state to firm up a mission to improve and enhance the quality of healthcare in rural Bihar with the prestigious National Rural Tele Medicine Ayush Network (NARTAN).

According to a statement from KTwo Technologies, it has deployed its flagship product Kshema - a Unified Healthcare System to help set up the primary and district health centers with a command and control center in Patna to steer the complete operation with video conferencing facilities. KTwo Technology Solutions was founded by Anant R Koppar who has to his credit a doctoral research in "Affordable and Accessible Healthcare System for Rural India" and had conceived the technology way back in 2007. KTwo has already set up many Kshema kiosks in Karnataka, Maharashtra and other states in India. Kshema Unified Healthcare System provides medical diagnostic facilities such as Blood Pressure, Body Temperature, ECG, Urine Analysis, Blood Sugar, SPO2, Audio Video consultation at Point-of-Care and establishes video conferencing facility with a distant-located doctor in an urban or semi urban center for tele-consultation. Kshema captures the electronic medical record of each patient and transmits clinical information over a network to offer video-consultation by a doctor.

Kshema's patent pending software algorithms detects communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, etc. using image-processing techniques in less than 30 minutes at the point of care. 'Kshema' unifies diagnostic hardware like microscope and vital signs monitor with the diagnostic software. The software consists of modules for electronic health records, pathology, radiology and vital signs monitor. The software has the ability to automatically identify the vital parameters and transmit them to the remote doctor through broadband or wireless connectivity.

"Kshema provides a solution through which a paramedic can record the patient problems/sufferings/vital parameters which are then transferred to a remote districtity health center with a doctor. The doctor can prescribe medication to the patient remotely. The inauguration of the project by Bihar CM Nitish Kumar is a proud moment for all of us,"Koppar added.

In this phase, Keonics and KTwo have deployed 110 telemedicine kiosks at PHCs belonging to 22 Districts and DHs with connectivity between PHCs, DHs and State Command Center. As of now, Kshema kiosks have been deployed and functioning at 84 PHCs, 22 Sadar Hospitals, 2 Medical colleges and 1 IGIC. "In 8 months, we have serviced around 57000+ patients out of which 27000+ are male patients and 30000+ are female patients. These patients have availed a total of 40000+ varied test services. Around 34500 patients had their vitals checked while around 4200 patients have checked their blood glucose levels. More than 1350 patients have availed the ECG facility while more than 500 patients have checked their urine profile," Koppar highlighted.