Bhubaneswar: With the advent of internet and its increased popularity among the people, several specialised facilities including medical advice by specialist doctors have also come in handy for the people who need it on a real-time basis.
Several online platforms have now connected doctors with the patients through cyberspace interventions where the patients can seek correct and timely medical advice from the doctors to avoid complications. Some websites and mobile applications have thus reduced the chasm between the patient and doctors to boost taking institutional assistance in medical cases.
Several doctors from the city who have connected with the patients online believe such interventions have helped the patients approach the doctors in an easy way. Alakta Das is a gynaecologist from the city. She often has counseled anxious female teenagers and pregnant women through various mobile apps like Practo and JustDial.
“Such aid has helped patients seek more authentic advice from the doctors rather than opting for self-treatment. It allows the patients to approach the doctors more easily and also helps in reducing the doctor-patient communication gap,” said Das.
She however explained that as per law the doctors can only give medical advice to the patients but cannot prescribe medicines online without their physical examination. She, however, said the through such apps the patients also get to know if they need to visit to a hospital or not panic unnecessarily.
“Such solutions are restricted to counseling alone. Another benefit of this is we are able to alert the patients in case they ignore critical signs of illness,” she said. Das also said that such apps help patients book online appointment with the professionals.
Nevertheless, not only general health conditions, online consultations have now also come in handy for high-risk health cases like cancer. This, doctors claim, has helped the people living in remote and semi-urban areas to seek opinions from qualified experts from other metro cities. Onco.com is an internet aggregator in healthcare specialising in cancer care and works to provide accurate and personalized scientific advice to cancer patients at every stage of their journey.
Rashie Jain, CEO and Co-founder, Onco.com, said, “We are solving a very critical problem— that of information gap that every cancer patient and their family experiences. A significant number of patients struggle to get the right treatment advice or find the right doctors/hospitals that could eventually affect their health in a positive manner and presently there is no credible source of information that guides the patients to the right treatment plan, doctors and hospitals and this creates a state of confusion and despair.”