Society to start tele-medicine service

Karnataka Lingayat Education Society (KLES)'s hospital in Belgaum will introduce a mobile rural tele-medicine and tele-health project, which uses privately-managed satellites. The service, claimed to be the first-of-its-kind in India was inaugurated on Monday.

Costing around Rs 35 lakh and co-sponsored by Canara Bank, Isro and BSNL, the project aims to provide quality healthcare services to the needy in the rural areas of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa.

Tele-medicine provides mobile diagnostic facilities with a live link to the KLES specialty hospital at Belgaum. Conducting preventive health check-ups at the doorstep of patients, live tele-consultations with super specialists at KLES Kore hospital, Belgaum, diagnostic services like ECG, ultrasound, x-ray and lab investigations, recorded and live programmes on health awareness for rural population, linking of all peripheral primary health centre and secondary care diagnostic centres to KLES specialty hospital, conducting VCME (Virtual Continuing Medical Education) programmes, disaster management and trauma care support services, virtual private healthcare network for efficient healthcare management services and video-conferencing among different KLES medical centres are the highlights of the project.

The society has also extended healthcare services by establishing hospitals at Ankola, Hubli, Gokak, Jamkhandi and Bagalkot.

Tele-medicine was initiated in 2005 by MV Jali, medical director and CEO of KLES hospital.