Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) has tied up with Healthcare Magic to launch a mobile health service, which provides assistance under medical emergency situations and also offers medical consultations.
To use the interactive voice response (IVR) based doctor on call service, Tata Indicom subscribers need to dial 54887. A doctor registers the personal data and medical history of the subscriber. Then an attending doctor diagnoses the case and determines whether a subscriber’s case falls under the acute, chronic or emergency heads.
In an acute condition, the caller will be given three different diagnoses by the attending doctor who also suggests some home remedy for immediate relief.
In case of a chronic condition, the attending doctor will suggest a future course of action or preventive measures such as change in lifestyle.
For emergencies, the doctor will suggest that the patient be rushed to the emergency ward of the nearest hospital.
The calls for consultation are chargeable at Rs 9 per minute. This service was first launched by Loop Mobile in 2008, followed by Aircel and Reliance Communications. Loop started by offering this service at Rs 15 per minute.
A similar service called Dr SMS was launched by the Kerala government in 2008, which enabled Kozhikode citizens to send an SMS to a pre assigned ten digit mobile, and avail information on hospitals, medical centres, facilities and doctors in the designated area. The cost of this service is Re 1 per SMS.