Need for tele follow-up--a study at a public sector quaternary referral hospital in India

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is the apex super-specialty, quaternary referral hospital of India. Its outpatient departments (OPDs) handle over 2.5 million patients every year, a large proportion of whom travel up to 2500 km for treatment because specialist facilities are not available in their regions. We conducted a descriptive study of 58 AIIMS faculty staff members, using a self-administered questionnaire followed by interviews with selected faculty members. During the year 2006, a total of 2,566,492 patients attended the various OPDs at the AIIMS, of whom 1,427,466 (56%) were old patients, i.e. they attended the OPD for follow-up. The questionnaire responses revealed that 55 (95%) of the respondents routinely provided follow-up medical advice to their patients using the telephone, email and/or letters. Only 3 (5%) respondents stated that they did not use any such means for follow-up of their patients. Most of the respondents identified benefits in the use of telemedicine and did not envisage any major difficulties in using it for the follow-up of patients. If appropriate tele follow-up facilities were available, probably more than one million OPD visits could be avoided annually at the AIIMS.