Video conference, mobile apps aid OPDs amid COVID-19 crisis

New Delhi: While the hospitals and medical institutes are stuck in the battleground fighting with COVID-19, technologies like mobile apps and video conferencing have taken over the Out Patient Departments to deal with patients with general complications.

While some hospitals are using phone calls others are using Whatsapp video calling to address the issues of the patients. Mobile apps of the hospitals are also emerging as game changers and are widely successful in replacing the manual OPD amid the social distancing norms in place.

Speaking about the steps taken by his hospital, Dr Amit Bhushan, Director, Cardiology Department, Paras Hospital told IANS: "We have got a Paras Healthmate App, we use this for video consultation with most of our patients especially the ones we had operated before or our follow up patients or those who need refreshed prescription of medicines. However, we are well equipped to handle any emergencines and available 24x7."

"In addition to the strict precautions of social distancing, preventing the sprad through air, people with pre existing history of diseases are being seprated and isolated," he added.

Narrating another apprach, Nishant Bajaj, Managing Director, W. Pratiksha Hospital said: "We have to be very careful, what we are doing is that we are first encouraging tele medicine through phone calls or Whatsapp video calls." Nishant also said that his hospital has a telemedicine app where patient can login and share his reports with the doctors. This makes us sure that if there is a real need of physical consultations.

"This also helps us to see if the patient is showing symptoms of COVID-19. When we reach the next stage i.e. the patient really needs physical attention, the patient has to fill up the COVID-19 questionnaire along with thermal scanning and then only if everything is normal, he is allowed inside the hospital for consultation," he said further.

While hospitals are doing their all to compete with the crisis, insurance giant Policybazaar along with top Insurance companies are offering insurance policies through Telemedical facility so that customers do not require a physical checkup.

Santosh Agarwal, CBO - Life Insurance, Policybazaar.com, said, "Keeping in mind, the worries of consumers, Health and Term Life Insurance now can be bought through policybazaar without physical medical to ease out the burden on medical centers. Medical check-up being an important aspect while buying term and health insurance plan, Policybazaar along with insurance companies have innovated the tele-medical facility. The customer can now get a term or health cover with a medical check on phone, without any physical medical check-up.

"Tele medical checkup is the need of the hour given the rapid rise in transmission of COVID-19 globally and is beneficial for everyone who is planning to buy a sum assured of up to 2 crore for term plan and 1 crore for health cover. It's only to enable customers to undergo a smooth transition in buying an insurance policy to cover themselves and their family against the uncertainties," he added.