Chandigarh, July 31 -- To ease the overwhelming patient rush during OPD hours, the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) is planning to introduce tele-consultation services for follow-up patients. The telemedicine department has circulated a proposal to all departments, seeking their participation. During their OPD visit, if follow-up patients opt for online consultation, they will be given a specific date and time for a video call with the doctor. Each clinic or OPD will need to allocate a separate room for these tele-consultation sessions. If implemented, the initiative will save patients, especially those travelling from far-off places, time, money and effort, allowing them to consult doctors from the comfort of home. Currently, PGIMER sees a daily OPD footfall of 8,000-10,000 patients, of whom two-thirds are follow-ups and one-third are new patients registering for the first time. Managing this rush has been a long-standing challenge for the institute. One initiative in this direction is the Digi Seva system, already implemented in the department of hepatology. It allows follow-up patients to register online, bypassing long queues. Patients using online registration are also given priority, further cutting down wait times. The telemedicine department has been offering tele-consultation to doctors of Haryana, who require expert opinion on various cases, through a memorandum of understanding between the institute and the Haryana government. Since 2021, the department has provided 2.5 lakh consultation to various government hospitals doctors. However, direct doctor-to-patient tele-consultation is currently not offered at any government hospital in the region. If PGIMER manages to roll out this service, it will be the first government institution to do so, said a professor at the hospital, not wishing to be named. A meeting involving stakeholders from various departments was held last month, following which a formal proposal has been circulated. So far, internal medicine, nephrology, neurosurgery, endocrinology, obstetrics and gynaecology, and gastroenterology departments have shown interest. While the project is in its initial stage and technical modalities need to be worked out, adequate manpower remains a major challenge in implementing the proposal. Each department will need at least one data entry operator to schedule appointments and an assistant for the doctor during video calls. Departments will either have to spare staff from their existing pool or fresh recruitments will have to be done. At present, the telemedicine department has 25 staffers, of which 23 are working under two health ministry-funded projects. PGIMER itself has provided only two contractual staffers for cleaning and sweeping. The department has no sanctioned faculty posts. It has long been demanding the creation of such posts to strengthen its tele-consultation, academic and research work. The proposal for faculty positions was tabled in the institute's 131st Standing Finance Committee meeting last month and sent for review. The head of the telemedicine department declined to comment, citing the proposal's early stage. The next meeting will be held once responses from all departments are in....