Telemedicine in India is spearheaded by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and has matured beyond technology demonstration to enter an operational phase in its history. This article attempts to bring out the evolution and development of telemedicine in India: the genesis, the approach followed, the stakeholders involved, and the results so far, with an outline for the future. ISRO has coupled its prowess in satellite communication technology with medical science and information technology to project specialty healthcare to the doorsteps of the rural, remote, and distant populace across the country. Having set the telemedicine program as a model for benefiting society with advances in modern technology, India is advancing to international dimensions the proven domestic program to people in other parts of the globe. More specifically, the article attempts to bring out the role played by ISRO, its vision, goals, and partners in the program along with the technology and observed impact.

Few indicators reflect the well being of a nation as succinctly as the health of its people. The Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) is probably as good an index as the Per capita income. Vast improvement can be brought about in health with capital investment in medical spheres. Focusing on health in general and telemedicine in particular can be a worthwhile strategy for India, striving to improve the quality of life of its people. Even with some of the best brains in medical science India faces an acute shortage of specialist doctors with most of them confined to major cities in the country. This is wholly inadequate to cater to a population of approximately one billion, the majority of which reside in villages and smaller towns. One of the fundamental issues that needs to be tackled for healthy living is to provide timely advise on the health status and diagnosis of diseases, particularly in rural and tribal areas. Telemedicine although being practiced worldwide since some years, it is being increasingly used by many countries in recent years due to the drastic improvements in telecommunication technology and infrastructure.

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Indian sub-continent is a vast country having large land mass. There are about 150 medical colleges located in twenty-one states. In recent times many super-specialties and sub-specialties in the medical sciences have been developed. Medical experts in these fields are few and are located in large university medical centers. Medical education is unique in the sense clinical material constitutes study material. Since most of the medical colleges aim at providing education at graduate and postgraduate level, such super/ sub-specialty areas are not covered enough. Telemedicine technology using Indian satellite communication system was used in Orissa state (located in eastern part of India) connecting three of its medical colleges with Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, an university academic medical center ( located 1500 kms. away in the northern part of India) with the objective of imparting need based education in some specialized area from a distance. The project is under operation for last one year. Audit at the end of one year is being presented in this report. Based on the feed back received from the user's and provider's end we found it worthwhile to use telemedicine technology based on satellite communication effective enough to optimally utilize the knowledge of few experts in certain specialized areas for the benefit of medical students in far off medical colleges.