Technological and sociocultural barriers to e-sanjeevani as a parallel means of health care: A narrative review

The accelerated growth in technology has resulted in the development of telemedicine services worldwide. The government of India introduced e-sanjeevani, a telemedicine system that allows users to seek medical care without reaching out to a physical space, using technology as a medium. This paper seeks to provide a narrative review to evaluate the potential of the e-sanjeevani system, reveal the challenges in its implementation, find potential gaps in the area, and propose future directions for research. The study results have found that there are numerous conclusive outcomes that e-sanjeevani has produced, including enabling remote patient monitoring, patient satisfaction, meeting the needs of a large population with limited health professionals, and free consultation. Challenges associated with the e-sanjeevani system includes access issues in rural areas and privacy concern among the users. There is a need to understand whether there are any disparities in accessibility and efficacy among the diverse population of the country.The future research in the area should focus on addressing concerns regarding equity in terms of accessing e-health care, and finding out the technological, sociocultural barriers in the usage of the e-sanjeevani system.