India’s unique telemedicine platform for joint video consultation, PyraMed is now live. A brainchild of senior paediatric surgeon Dr Ketan Parikh, this application aims to empower all doctors with specialist/super-specialist medical advice. This will help provide quality medical opinion even in the remotest parts of India at an affordable cost. The ease and capability of accessing specialist opinion will enable the local doctors to make quick and timely decisions for their patients.
The patient has only to visit his regular primary doctor. As and when the ailment needs an opinion of a specialist, this primary doctor can video-consult with the relevant specialist, upload all relevant information and seek an opinion from the specialist in the presence of the patient. With PyraMed, the primary doctor is able to bridge the vital gap in telemedicine – inform the physical examination to the specialist, resulting in better diagnosis, reduced investigations, and improved quality of care. The auto-generation of an electronic healthcare record which is available to both doctors as well as the patient, improves collaboration and transparency. PyraMed, has partnered with top doctors and hospitals to provide affordable specialist/super-specialist care to those who have the greatest need and the greatest difficulty in accessing these services.”
Dr Ketan Parikh, the founder of PyraMed, said, I was really interested in trying to figure out, how do you provide better access to specialty expertise in communities where it’s necessary and valuable. Because primary care is the foundation of the system and real transformation to lower costs have to start there. We want people to think of PyraMed as the way to get high-quality consultations more efficiently and locally so that there’s no barrier for medical expertise.
Dr Parikh added, “We believe PyraMed will not only help avoid unnecessary physical visits to specialists, but will also significantly increase patients’ access to specialty expertise, save patients time, and reduce their travel burden. Our aim is to help 50 lakh patients over the next 5 years, saving Rs 1500 crores for rural patients in travel, loss of pay, and ancillary costs.”
70% of the Indian population resides in rural areas. But, almost 70% – 90% of the medical specialists are located in the major cities. Public health efforts mainly concentrate on primary health care. Patients in rural areas have inadequate access to specialty healthcare. Accessing specialist care involves the cost of traveling and staying in metros besides loss of rural productivity and income. Nonavailability of timely care results in compromising health and escalating costs as well. The paucity of guidance for specialist care and inadequate auditing/ transparency of decision-making leads to frequent exploitation of patients. In the absence of trustworthy doctors nearby, most villagers spend between ₹800 and ₹1,000 to go to cities for treatment, while others suffer at the hands of local quacks.
