AIIMS software can extend specialist care for diabetics in rural areas

During the Covid pandemic, when lockdowns made physical interaction with healthcare providers difficult, digital technologies provided timely relief to a section of people with chronic ailments. The emergency pushed healthcare professionals and policymakers to recognise the potency of telemedicine in managing diseases such as diabetes, in which constant doctor-patient engagement is particularly crucial. A digitally connected healthcare ecosystem, it’s now recognised, can improve treatment outcomes, especially in large parts of rural India where the lack of specialists often comes in the way of timely diagnosis and medication. A software, developed by doctors and technicians at AIIMS, Delhi, is a significant initiative in this respect. It can extend specialised diabetes consultation to primary healthcare centres (PHCs) in rural areas.

Studies have suggested that India’s diabetes burden — already the second highest in the world — is underreported because close to 50 per cent of patients, in both rural and urban areas, are unaware of their condition. Much time is lost before arriving at a diagnosis because the general physician at PHCs or small clinics cannot always join the dots between the diabetic’s symptoms. The software is one step towards addressing these deficits. It requires the local-level healthcare professional to feed-in patient data on risk factors like blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar. It then processes the information to suggest the treatment.