Rajasthan Gov to Roll out Digital Emergency Referral System

The initiative is expected to strengthen Rajasthan's emergency healthcare infrastructure by leveraging technology to provide quicker, smarter, and more coordinated medical services across the state.

The Rajasthan government has announced plans to introduce a Digital Medical Emergency Referral System, a major healthcare initiative aimed at transforming emergency patient care and ensuring faster, more efficient treatment across the state.

The new digital platform is designed to enable real-time coordination between hospitals, ambulances, and emergency medical teams, allowing patients to be referred to the most appropriate healthcare facility without delay.

The system is intended to reduce referral delays, improve emergency response times, optimise hospital resources, and enhance patient outcomes, particularly in critical and life-threatening cases.

The initiative is expected to strengthen Rajasthan's emergency healthcare infrastructure by leveraging technology to provide quicker, smarter, and more coordinated medical services across the state.

Following its deployment, Rajasthan is set to become the first state in India to implement a fully automated digital emergency referral network.

Piloted at RNT Med­ical Col­lege in Udaipur, SETU (Sim­pli­fied Emer­gency Trans­fer and Urgent Refer­ral) has already man­aged over 3,519 emer­gency cases across 15 dis­tricts, repla­cing “blind arrivals” with real­time alerts, GPS-tracked ambu­lances and beds reserved in advance, pro­tect­ing the cru­cial golden hour that often decides whether a patient in crit­ical con­di­tion sur­vives, offi­cials stated.

The initiative has been developed under the strategic guidance of Chief Secretary Srinivas Voruganti and the leadership of Principal Secretary (Medical & Health) Gayatri Rathore (IAS).

Following the strategic vision of the Chief Secretary (CS), Srinivas Voruganti, and under the leadership of the Principal Secretary (Medical & Health), Gayatri Rathore (IAS).

As the Principal Secretary, the statewide rol­lout of the SETU plat­form is expec­ted to make Rajasthan the first state in the coun­try to imple­ment a com­pre­hens­ive digital emer­gency refer­ral net­work aimed at redu­cing treat­ment delays. She said SETU is not merely a digital plat­form but a life-sav­ing link between patients and spe­cial­ist care, enabling faster, bet­ter-coordin­ated and more effect­ive refer­rals.

“Our object­ive is to ensure that a crit­ic­ally ill patient arriv­ing from any corner of the state receives imme­di­ate treat­ment without los­ing valu­able time after reach­ing the hos­pital,” the prin­cipal sec­ret­ary said.

The platform is intended to improve coordination between primary, community, district, and tertiary hospitals by enabling healthcare providers to share patient information before arrival.

Under the new system, patients referred from Primary Health Centres (PHCs), Community Health Centres (CHCs), and district hospitals will no longer arrive at tertiary care facilities without prior information. Referring doctors will upload patient details, including diagnosis, clinical condition, referral information, and estimated time of arrival, by scanning a QR code through a smartphone.

The information will be sent to a 24x7 digital control room, enabling specialists to assess the patient's condition while the ambulance is in transit. The system also supports live GPS tracking of ambulances, enabling receiving hospitals to monitor patient movement and prepare emergency teams in advance.

Based on the patient's condition, the platform alerts relevant departments, including trauma, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, and other specialties, through the government's Closed User Group (CUG) communication network. Intensive care or emergency beds can also be reserved before the patient's arrival, allowing treatment to begin immediately upon reaching the hospital.

Officials noted that the system has been designed to address Rajasthan's geographical challenges, where patients from remote areas often travel long distances to reach tertiary healthcare facilities.

The digital workflow enables pre-arrival triage, mobilisation of specialist teams, and preparation of emergency infrastructure before patients arrive.nd seamless integration without high capital expenditure.

Bey­ond emer­gency man­age­ment, the sys­tem includes a qual­ity assur­ance com­pon­ent. Every patient referred through SETU receives a fol­low-up call from the con­trol room on the fol­low­ing day to obtain feed­back on treat­ment and hos­pital ser­vices. The feed­back is used to identify oper­a­tional gaps and improve patient care.

Health offi­cials emphas­ised that the platform has been developed as a low-cost, scalable solution that operates using smartphones, QR codes, the existing CUG communication network, and the Google Workspace ecosystem, eliminating the need for significant new infrastructure investments.

Describ­ing the ini­ti­at­ive, offi­cials said SETU is “not merely a digital applic­a­tion but a life-sav­ing bridge con­nect­ing primary health­care centres in remote areas with ter­tiary med­ical col­leges,” ensur­ing that spe­cial­ist teams are ready before a patient arrives and sig­ni­fic­antly improv­ing the chances of sur­vival.

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