Electronic Urban Primary Health Centres

In order to address the immense need of providing essential primary healthcare services for the urban poor living in slum areas, Urban Primary Health Centres (UPHC) were upgraded to electronic UPHC’s by TeleHealth. These centres not only provide essential services but have harnessed technology to deliver a spectrum of specialist services such as cardiology, orthopedics, endocrinology, and general medicine through telemedicine.

Spread across nine districts of the state of Andhra Pradesh in India, 183 eUPHCs have been set up; each of these centres is remotely connected to Apollo Hospitals through TeleHealth technology.

By leveraging the benefits of communication technology, this first of its kind Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiative in India, has broken the confines of a tertiary hospital by bringing specialized care to the doorsteps of the underprivileged.

The initiative is a part of the National Health Mission (NHM), a Government of India programme. NHM envisages meeting healthcare needs of the urban population with the focus on urban poor, by making available to them essential primary healthcare services and reducing their out-of-pocket expenses for treatment.

Apollo TeleHealth and the Government of Andhra Pradesh, through the unique eUPHC centres, have not just provided essential primary health services as per the requirements of the programme but have gone beyond its need by upgrading the existing centres, and leveraged communication technology to enable quality specialized healthcare for the urban poor. This PPP model of healthcare is a significant contribution to Universal Healthcare because of its unique and comprehensive spectrum of coverage and services.