New Delhi: StepOne, a non-profit volunteer driven collective of 7000 doctors, has announced a National COVID Telemed Helpline, offering inclusive and 24×7 access to Healthcare experts to citizens of India, free of cost. The helpline, +91-9745697456, is now live for citizens across the country living in the shadow of the rising pandemic.
The helpline will provide TeleMed services under COVID related, mental help and video consultation for non COVID related cases.
Citizens can call the helpline number anytime from anywhere without any charge and will get a call back from a healthcare expert within minutes to understand the needs of the caller. Callers can share their symptoms basis which, if required, a doctor would call back and guide them on the next steps. StepOne has also come up with a web-based tele-screening bot that interacts with citizens who wish to share their symptoms and passes the information to a doctor based on the symptoms. It has also come up with a mental health helpline providing counselling to citizens for expressing their issues for appropriate resolutions.
Announcing the National COVID Telemed Helpline, Raghavendra Prasad T S, Founder, StepOne, said,“As India battles the spread of COVID-19, there are many questions and fears people across the country have. With a mission to help state governments identify, locate and treat COVID-19 suspects, StepOne aims at serving people with their COVID, non COVID and Mental Health queries. Through a collective effort of 4000+ verified doctors, technologists, entrepreneurs & operators, we aspire to reach every nook and corner of the country and extend our support to the ones in need. Our volunteer doctors are working round the clock and have been able to identify over 40,000 high-risk COVID-19 suspects and also managed to prevent about 3.2 lakh people from getting infected and we wish to continue our efforts in this direction.”
Working very closely with StepOne, Dr.Shuchin Bajaj, said, “COVID-19 has been one of the biggest challenges humanity has faced in the recent times and it is heartening to see that volunteers have risen from the ranks of all industries including doctors and techies to help reach out to patients and provide them succour. The fact that 7000 plus doctor volunteers are working day and night without any money or recognition, just to provide help to patients, rekindles our faith in humanity. StepOne is committed to providing high quality healthcare to all communities in the long run and we see ourselves as a charitable online hospital which will ensure healthcare access to all regardless of their financial or social status.”
For the next phase of expanding its services, StepOne plans to launch a mobile app for citizens of the country to share their symptoms with a doctor remotely for e-consultation and free of charge. It has introduced and launched “Isolation Monitoring” services across 4 states to monitor citizens who have been recommended quarantine and they are following the given protocols.
Project StepOne is India’s largest group of volunteer doctors & technologists, fighting COVID-19 using Telemedicine. An initiative started by Raghavendra Prasad T S, who co-founded Qikwell Technologies in 2011.
StepOne runs scalable helplines powered by thousands of volunteer doctors which are enabling to keep citizens indoor and connect them with a doctor on phone. The solution has been carefully designed and works without smart phone or internet or the need for the caller to be literate as they can speak in their own language with the IVR & Doctors. StepOne State Helplines are active in 10 states including Chattisgarh, Bihar, Delhi, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab and Uttarakhand.
