Rohit Shishodia

Delhi-AIIMS has started tele-consultation guidance to support doctors treating Covid patients in hospitals run by different state governments. The doctors will provide expert guidance and knowledge support to doctors manning ICUs in state hospitals. The first session will start at 4:30 pm today that will be led by Dr. Anant Mohan, HOD, Pulmonary Medicine, AIIMS, Delhi.

The move is part of the Indian Health Ministry plan to reduce deaths due to Covid. Tele-consultation is a critical component of the clinical intervention protocol for Covid-19. A specialist team of doctors from AIIMS, New Delhi, shall provide guidance on effective clinical management of Covid-19 patients in the ICUs of different state hospitals through tele/video consultation.

They will handhold the states in clinical management of Covid-19 patients to reduce the case fatality rate. These tele-consultation sessions for providing timely and expert guidance to the doctors in the states shall be conducted twice every week, on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The first session of this exercise shall begin from today at 4.30 pm. Ten hospitals have been selected, including nine from Mumbai (Maharashtra) and one from Goa.

The hospitals include NESCO Jumbo Facility, P South (Phase II); CIDCO Mulund Jumbo Facility – T (Phase II); Malad Infiniti Mall Jumbo Facility, PN (Phase III); Jio Convention Centre Jumbo Facility, HE (Phase III); Nair Hospital; MCGM Seven Hills; MMRDA BKC Jumbo Facility, HE (Phase II); MMRDA BKC Jumbo Facility, HE (Phase I); Mumbai Metro Dahisar Jumbo Facility, T (Phase II); and Govt. Medical College and Hospital, Panaji, Goa.

These hospitals have more than 1000 beds for Covid patients including isolation beds, oxygen supported and ICU beds. This tele-consultation exercise shall be extended to another 61 hospitals which have bed capacity ranging from 500-1000.

A calendar of these expert-led tele-consultation sessions has been drawn up to cover the States till July 31, 2020. Total of 17 such states shall be covered (Delhi, Gujarat, Telangana, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Jharkhand and Maharashtra).

Up to two doctors handling ICU patients from each hospital along with the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) of the concerned state, will participate in the VC interaction.