Abstract: COVID-19 is a public health emergency of international concern. Ensuring primary healthcare during this pandemic appeared to be a great challenge. Primary healthcare services are being disrupted due to lockdown, lack of protective gears and hospital facilities, risk of infection spread to non-COVID patients and health professionals. People with acute and chronic ailments including diabetes, pregnancy, obesity, chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular disease, cancer, mental health conditions are in trouble. In this article, the challenges in primary healthcare in developing countries during COVID-19 pandemic have been analyzed and the role of telemedicine in addressing these challenges has been discussed. Telemedicine can play an important role in this pandemic by minimizing virus spread, utilizing the time of healthcare professionals effectively and in alleviating mental health issues.

Panelists discuss the need for governance during the development and adoption of blockchain solutions, considerations when evaluating current and proposed legislation, recommendations for policymakers developing governance expectations and the current risks and limitations to policy development regarding industry adoption.

The Government of India (GoI), during the past 8 years, has been encouraging and supporting start-ups with various schemes, for the purpose of wealth creation, improving economic growth, and employment. There is also a growing support system in India, in the private sector, for funding, mentorship, and techno-commercial support for telemedicine-enabled start-up projects. In practice however, there are many critical decisions that need to be taken and pitfalls to be avoided, for start-ups to achieve success, as envisaged by the GoI. Objective: This paper shares the challenges encountered so as to help upcoming healthcare start-up’s navigate this route skilfully, avoiding pitfalls. Results: The results of 4 years of work (Jan 2016 to Mar 2020) and the present status are discussed and the learnings drawn from the AmbuPod Project (on-going) summarized. Conclusion: Telemedicine supported Rural Healthcare Start-Up projects have a good business potential in India, provided challenges are planned for, addressed, and resolved.