Assessing effectiveness of telemedicine intervention for creating awareness of pain education in rural areas of Central India

Abstract

Introduction: Pain and palliative care is a growing need of the current healthcare system. This is because of the changing trends of disease related morbidity and mortality from acute communicable disease to chronic non communicable diseases. Development and easy availability of telecommunication mediums may be useful for creating awareness of pain and palliative care education in rural Indian setting. Material and Method: We tried to assess effectiveness of telemedicine intervention for creating awareness of pain education in rural area of Central India. Total of five villages were connected through high speed broadband services to a tertiary care centre (LN Medical College Bhopal). This medical college acted as a nodal centre for the peripheral rural areas for providing telemedicine intervention. Results: Telemedicine appears to be an effective and acceptable mode of creating awareness of pain and palliative care in rural population of Central India. Conclusion: Telemedicine interventions may be able to bridge the gap between rural and urban part of Central India and may prove to be useful in low resource setting.