Indo-French Dialogue on Telemedicine in Healthcare

Embassy of France in India, January 22, 2015, 

On the occasion of the India visit of French trainee-superintendents of hospitals, the Embassy of France, in collaboration with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, organized an Indo-French dialogue between experts from the health sector to share their experiences and the growing potential of Health IT.

The goal of this workshop was to exchange ideas about telemedicine as a means to improve the efficiency and quality of healthcare in India.

Telemedicine is not a separate medical specialty; rather it is a tool that can be used by health providers to extend the traditional practice of medicine outside the walls of conventional medical practice. Telemedicine in India has a potential of 80-90% of financial savings and enjoys a high acceptability ratio among its rural communities. In France, following the successful implementation of several pilot projects, the Government recently cleared 300 telemedicine projects supported by the public sector.

A healthcare scenario, which uses IT and communications as an enabler, improves access and provides better preventive measures ensuring treatment in time to the urban as well as the rural population. In France and India many telemedicine programmes have been actively supported by the government and medical community. However, the telemedicine segment is still at a stage where a defined framework for Health Information Technology is yet to be set up.

Panel:

Dr K Ganapathy - President, Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation (ATNF)Dr Vijay Agarwal – Executive Director, Pushpanjali Crosslay Hospital
Dr Pankaj Gupta – Partner, Taurus Glocal Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd.
Mr Christophe Saint Martin - Institute of High Studies in Public Health, France 
Ms Shobha Mishra Ghosh - Senior Manager, Health Department, FICCI
See the event Details on French Embassy website

I am posting the background notes I had prepared. I hope this helps. 
You can read it here