PGI’s Digital Doctrine Signals a Shift Toward Hospital-at-home Healthcare

The five-year digital health roadmap proposes AI-enabled telemedicine, digital clinician training, and nationwide hospital-at-home services through the National Medical College Network.

Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI) has submitted a five-year digital health roadmap to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, outlining a transition toward a technology-led system where specialist care reaches patients at home and at the periphery.

Acting as a premier regional resource centre for the National Medical College Network (NMCN), the institute has proposed a future-ready ecosystem built around the ideas of "hospital-at-home" and "specialist-at-periphery", supported by artificial intelligence, telemedicine, and integrated digital infrastructure.

The roadmap builds on the initial phase of the NMCN, under which 103 government medical colleges have already been digitally mapped.

The next stage focuses on full national integration, allowing seamless sharing of clinical expertise, patient data, and educational resources across states.

A central pillar of PGI’s plan is the training of future doctors as "Digital Clinicians". Through live, interactive masterclasses, students posted in district hospitals would be able to join real-time clinical rounds conducted by leading specialists.

The SAKSHAM portal is expected to integrate augmented and virtual reality tools, allowing learners to practise complex procedures such as robotic surgery or explore detailed 3D anatomical models without patient risk.

To standardise competencies, a six-month Telemedicine Certificate Course has been proposed to formalise skills in remote examinations and virtual triage.

Clinically, the roadmap emphasises a "Hub and Spoke" model to extend specialist care. In Tele-ICU services, a central "Hub" with an expert intensivist would monitor multiple peripheral beds or "Spokes" using live video feeds and continuous physiological data, enabling remote guidance for critical interventions.

Tele-cardiology services aim to reduce heart attack fatalities by streaming live ECG data from rural centres, improving the critical "door-to-needle" time. Chronic care management, such as the Tele-Anticoagulant Clinic, would allow heart valve patients to adjust medication dosages through mobile applications, reducing repeated hospital visits.

Tele-mobile vans equipped with satellite connectivity are proposed to serve tribal and hilly regions, linking patients directly with neurologists or oncologists while synchronising data with electronic health records.

Teledermatology platforms would also use secure repositories to train AI systems capable of detecting skin cancers or forecasting disease outbreaks from smartphone images.

The plan also addresses the legal-medical interface through tele-evidence, enabling doctors to provide expert testimony via secure video links. This approach is intended to save significant clinical time otherwise lost to court travel, allowing specialists to prioritise patient care.

Collectively, the proposed tele-services are expected to be offered pan-India, reinforcing digital health as a foundational pillar of India’s healthcare delivery system.

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