Fortis Healthcare rolled out online consultations for patients in 23 hospitals across India. As the country continues with COVID 19 lock down, the step was conceived to continue patient care services without risking the health of patients or doctors. Both tele-consults as well as video consult services have been running successfully with encouraging response from patients.

Till date, over 8000 consults have taken place via the e-consulting medium. A total of 393 e-consults were conducted across the network on 25^th April and 365 were done on 24^th April. Fortis Hospital in Mohali saw the maximum number of e-consults at 1539 followed by Fortis Memorial Research Institute (FMRI) in Gurgaon at 1330. The online consults take place during the regular OPD hours at normal OPD rates.The doctors from specialties like Neurology, Gynecology, Gastroenterology, Rheumatology, Orthopedics, Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, Nephrology, ENT, Mental Health and Internal Medicine are providing online consultations as of now.

Details of the process:

• Both audio consults and video consults are enabled by the MicroSoft Teams platform. In some cases, simple telephonic consults are also happening depending on the comfort of the patients
• Through the Fortis website or call center, patients can request for an e-consult. For those with the ‘myFortis’ application, a push notification is sent with a link to book e-consults
• A landing page has been created on the website which helps patients choose their hospital and specialty. They are then contacted by the call center and an e-appointment is booked. The payment link is sent via SMS to the patient
• The agent from the respective hospital then uses the internal enterprise collaboration tool (MS Teams) to book a e-consultation between the doctor and the patient. The e-meeting link is sent through the invite and the platform also sends out appointment reminders to both patient and doctor
• At the stipulated time, patient joins the meeting by accessing the link in the invite as a guest user using camera enabled device and waits for the turn in virtual lobby
• Once the doctor arrives at the e-meeting, the patient is allowed into the meeting and e-consultation is provided in keeping with the guidelines issued by the Ministry Of Health &Family Welfare (MOHFW).
• Post consultation the prescription is uploaded on the platform which can be downloaded by the patient and a copy is sent via email to his/her email address

A wide scale training has been conducted to train and familiarize doctors as well as support staff with the platform and troubleshoot the teething issues. The patient can call the hospital board line, visit the website or use my Fortis application to request a call-back. Then a link is shared with the appointment time and preferred mode of interaction (video or telephone). SMS and WhatsApp’s have also been shared with the patient databaseto help them book a tele or video consults via the link – https://bit.ly/2Xw66xC