SAMBALPUR: Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Sciences And Research (VIMSAR), Burla launched telemdicine service from Tuesday to facilitate consultation to patients over phone in the coronavirus outbreak situation.

The move comes in the wake of rise in number of patients’ footfall at VIMSAR due to temporary closure of the district headquarters hospital (DHH) and other private clinics in the city. 

Assistant professor Dr Madhusmita Acharya has been designated as the nodal officer of the telemedicine unit. Two dedicated helpline numbers have been launched for 24x7 delivery of telemedicine service at VIMSAR.

The helpline numbers are 0663-2432103 and 7205207947 Currently, four staff have been deployed at the telemedicine unit for receiving calls and noting details of patients.

If a doctor is available, they transfer the call directly to him/her or call back the patient as soon as a doctor is available. 

No fixed doctors have been assigned for the service. Every doctor has been entrusted with an additional telemedicine duty for fixed hours in a day.

These include all doctors from medicine, gynaecology, surgery, orthopaedic, ENT, pulmonary medicine and skin departments.

This apart, super-speciality departments like neurology and urology have been asked to perform telemedicine duty at least three to four days a week.

Assistant Professor Dr Tanmay Padhi, who is attached to the service, said, “We have started the service on a trial basis and all the systems will be streamlined soon. We are also waiting for any specific guidelines from the State Government for functioning of telemedicine services after May 3.”