E-health for rural areas of Uttarakhand under e-Governance service delivery model

There are many inequities for Indian citizen living in rural and remote areas. They generally have poorer health than their major city counterparts, reflected in higher levels of illness and health risk factors which are present later and often require care away from home increasing the overall rates of mortality. Proposed E-health model may allow better sharing of health information among multiple care providers, locally and at a distance, making rural and remote communities in reach. But without national coordination, a genuine understanding and the addressing of rural and remote needs, we cannot setup a good e-health solutions. Government priorities for providing health service to rural areas is yet to be fulfilled. At this stage low budget from state for health, lack of funds and coordination have triggered down trend in health services in rural and hilly areas. As medical science is fast developing and information resource is pouring in, there is urgent need for dissemination knowledge by interlinking primary, secondary and tertiary level health centers using the ICT and e-Governance applications. This will help health personal to deliver high quality services. IT giants are experimenting for e-Governance application in health sector both in Government and private hospitals, This paper reviews use of e-Governance through ICT applications at National Level and also in Uttarakhand province. It presents facts on tele-medicine, tele-referal services and health information dissemination by Video conferencing, Some suggested services using ICT in healthcare are explained in this paper also. Use of Mobile phone to communicate health related alerts using SMS services in rural areas suggested here in this paper.