Healthcare industry employees, work in rotating shift duties to provide 24/7 services. Shift work is known to disrupt circadian rhythm and predispose the employees to metabolic risk and oxidative stress, subsequently increasing the risk for Non-Communicable Diseases. Present study attempts to evaluate this association. Aims: To evaluate the association between metabolic risk and oxidative stress among health care personnel working in rotating night-shift as compared to dayshift. Settings and design: Cross sectional study. Methods and materials: Eligible 124 employees [(night shift (61), Day shift (63)] working in a tertiary care hospital in Bengaluru were randomly selected and tested for anthropometric and laboratory parameters pertaining to metabolic risk and oxidative stress and categorized accordingly using standard criteria. Statistical tests (student t-test) were applied to test for association between shift work, metabolic risk and oxidative stress. Results: Metabolic risk and Oxidative stress were significantly higher in rotating night shift workers as compared to day shift (p < 0.001) and (p < 0.017) respectively. Conclusion: Rotating night shift work is associated with increase in metabolic risk and oxidative stress and there is a need to consider this enhanced risk during periodical medical examination and employee health interventions. There is a need for further research to quantify risk for metabolic risk and understand this association in other occupations as well.

Telemedicine though not a newer concept to healthcare community, it is relatively a new acquaintance to both healthcare providers and the general public. Since 11th of March 2020, the day when WHO declared COVID-19 infection as pandemic, the telemedicine services had achieved quick popularity. In fact this pandemic boosted a solid foundation for telemedicine and now it is one among the scope of services offered by any reputed healthcare organization globally. This article aims to emphasize how a symbiosis between telemedicine, POCT and mobile health units can help to deliver a high quality healthcare eliminating the risk of infection spread to both patients and health care providers. The methodology adopted includes collective viewpoints of authors which are based upon working experience gained during the current pandemic and literature review of recent and relevant articles related to process and pitfalls of telemedicine. Literature search was conducted by searching using key words and phrases like ‘Telemedicine’, ‘COVID-19 and Telemedicine’ and ‘Non- Communicable Diseases management during pandemic’. The scope and gaps observed by literature survey and personal experience included infrastructure, awareness and training of both health care providers and patient population, utilization of POCT devices, internet connectivity, need for an nationwide unified Health Information Management System (HIMS) to aid easy access to patient health information and easy referrals to higher centers. In summary telemedicine is an absolute necessity during this on-going pandemic and its enhancement by integration with artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms is a real need of hour.

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