PGI doctors save 30,000 hours in four years by using video-conferencing

The hospital administration wing of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) claims to have saved nearly 30,000 working hours of doctors, costing around Rs 2.79 crore, in the last four years by using tele-evidence services.

Apart from this, a minimum of Rs 48.3 lakh was saved on fuel expenditure in the past four years.

Tele-evidence is the videoconferencing mode of giving testimony in courts.

Before the launch of the facility in 2014, doctors had to appear in courts across different cities as professional or expert witnesses to give their testimony in various cases. This used to consume time and resources of the doctors and hospitals.

However, at present, majority of the daily court proceedings are being carried out through videoconferencing across Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

In over 65% court cases, which is around 3,722 cases, tele-evidence services have been used by doctors of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) since March 2014.

As per the calculations of PGIMER hospital administration, for every court hearing conducted via tele-evidence, eight hours per doctor and Rs 7,500 were saved.

The cost saved per doctor, per case has been calculated on the basis of the average cost to company (CTC) of doctor.

It means, nearly 30,000 working hours of doctors were saved via tele-evidence in four years, from March 2014 to March 18. They otherwise cost PGIMER Rs 2.79 crore.

Not only doctor’s working hours, the team of hospital administration has also calculated saving from driver’s man-hours and cost per case, which was eight hours and Rs 1,500 per case.

Per case, minimum 26 litre fuel costing Rs1,300 was also saved. It means Rs 4,838, 600 (Rs 48 .3 lakh) was saved on fuel.

“Tele-evidence is an acceptable and implementable mode of testifying and has led to tremendous resource savings in our tertiary care setting. The model needs to be replicated for deliverance of justice and is in consonance with the government's push toward digital India,” PGIMER medical superintendent Dr AK Gupta said.

He said, “Tele-conferencing was started at the PGIMER in 2014 and with this, the institute became first in the country to start such service. We even received an award for this by the government.”

On an average, tele-evidence is used in over 1,000 court cases every year at PGIMER.