Cisco has launched its Cisco healthcare service pilot in collaboration with the Government of Madhya Pradesh (MP) in Sehore.

In first phase of deployment, community and primary healthcare centres (CHCs and PHCs) in Sehore and Gwalior are being linked to their district hospitals.

Through this pilot, patients at the CHCs/PHCs will be able to access basic medical treatment and specialist consultations remotely.

Patients at these clinics will be able to communicate via video links with specialists and other medical staff at the district hospital. A nurse at the clinic will check their vital signs while a distant doctor at the hospital consults and makes a diagnosis in real time via the video and audio links.

Two more districts in Madhya Pradesh — Datia in the north and Chhindwara in the south — will be wired up later. In all, 11 community health centers in these four districts will be connected to hospitals by this system.

Cisco’s idea here is to use technology to reduce the inequality in healthcare treatment between rural and urban people.

A vast country like India, where 70 per cent of people live in rural areas, but 80 per cent of doctors are in cities, is a good place for such a test, a Cisco official said.

“The Government of Madhya Pradesh is keen to provide affordable and easily accessible healthcare to its population,” the state’s Public Health and Family Welfare Minister Mahendra Hardia said.