In 2016 it was decided to set up a National Institute of Telemedicine at PGIMER, capable of providing graduate and Post Graduate level courses online and act as a country wide class room for medical education and medical research activities, tele conferencing and tele consultation, under the aegis of National Knowledge Network. The aim was to establish a state of the art National Institute of Telemedicine (NIT) capable of providing clinical services, medical education and research facilities in various specialties and super specialties through the innovative field of telemedicine and promote application of digital technology for clinical care in the Health sector. The Center of Excellence now facilitates the provision of medical care, develop educational courses and carry out research in the field of telemedicine and digital health technology.

PGIMER Chandigarh was designated as Regional Resource Centre (RRC) under National Medical College Network (NMCN) in the year 2015. PGIMER is the Nodal Centre of the North Zone for the NMCN, being connected to the almost 29 medical colleges of J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana. The connection to these medical colleges is through the National Knowledge Network (NKN) through video conferencing/webex. In the past years, RRC has organized regional workshops for the connected medical colleges and conducted workshops on artificial intelligence & machine learning for healthcare workers. Worthy dignitaries from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India played a significant part in the conduction, supervision, and success of the workshop. RRC is also involved in developing online modules from eminent faculty members of the institute and other connected medical colleges on different specialties. These modules are highlighted/uploaded on SAKSHAM (Stimulating Advance Knowledge for Sustainable Health Management) Learning Management Information System of MoHFW. RRC also supervises the tele education sessions in e-classroom of the institute and other medical colleges.

The AB-HWC Centre is connected to 20 district hospitals, 91 community health center (CHC), 336 Primary health centre (PHC), 26 sub divisional hospital (SDH) and 21 district HQ hospitals. Consultants are providing super specialty tele-consultations to all the districts of Haryana, with about 92,425 consultations in the past 2 years. The department specific consultations are being provided in Internal Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Pediatrics, Ophthalmology, ENT and Dermatology. These tele-consultation services have also been discussed in parliament as the best example to access health, and a justice in view of health care being provided throughout India.” Recently, e-Sanjeevani 2.0 portal has been launched by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (designed by CDAC Mohali) for AB-HWC tele-consultations, adopted due to its features that use artificial intelligence and Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) that support in decision making of a medical professional providing tele-consultations.

The Union ministry of health and family welfare designated PGIMER as one of the three centres of excellence for creating and using artificial intelligence (AI)-based treatment in the healthcare sector. The centre of excellence for AI in healthcare is a significant step towards achieving the Indian Government’s vision of creating a robust and accessible healthcare system for all citizens. The government’s Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is aimed at enabling the interoperability of health data within the health ecosystem, thus creating a longitudinal Electronic Health Record (EHR) of every citizen. PGIMER Chandigarh’s expertise will be leveraged to develop AI-based tools that can aid healthcare professionals in providing accurate diagnosis and expert assistance to patients.

In 2023, Department of Telemedicine at PGIMER Chandigarh has been established as CoE-Telepathology under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India. PGIMER is a premier medical education and research institute that has made significant contributions to the field of medicine over the years, and the provision of Telepathology will enable our designated pathologists to view digitized or analog video or still image(s), and render an interpretation that is included in a formal diagnostic report or documented in the patient record. This facilitates remove area coverages with online real-time consultations, and is an inexpensive model that benefits the community with expert opinions and rapid diagnosis.