New Delhi, June 4 : A private healthcare firm has joined hands with the Delhi government to provide home isolation services for coronavirus patients. Portea Medical, which claims to be India's largest 'outside of hospital healthcare' firm, announced the tie-up signed on April 30, here on Thursday. The firm called it a "first of its kind partnership" and its one of the many other initiatives in the wake of the pandemic to help reduce the healthcare burden and free up hospital beds and ICUs for those who needed it the most. Stating that over 80 per cent Covid-19 patients are asymptomatic or show mild symptoms and don't require hospital care, Portea Medical said it was helping the government in screening patients for home isolation since May 4. These patients were being monitored remotely through a comprehensive tracking system, involving government doctors and experts from Portea for the mandated 17-day isolation period, it said. "Portea also submits regular reports on their condition flagging off any health complications. If required, the company arranges tele-consultation with the Delhi government doctors. For cases where hospitalisation may be needed, Portea notifies the appropriate government agency for action on the ground," it said. After the mandatory isolation period, the company said, patients who met certain criteria were discharged from home isolation. "The initiative is aimed at helping reduce the burden on hospitals and healthcare resources," it added. Speaking on tie-up, Meena Ganesh, MD & CEO, Portea Medical, said, "We have been leveraging technology to provide end-to-end home healthcare services to clients for over 7 years and have developed the requisite capability and infrastructure." This partnership, Ganesh said was an opportunity to help the government manage the crisis with technology as an enabler. "Since the entire process is being managed via remote monitoring, the risk of infection for frontline healthcare workers will also be reduced significantly. We believe this is the right time to integrate home healthcare and telemedicine as core elements of our national healthcare strategy," Ganesh said. Of the 13,497 active Covid-19 cases in Delhi, 3,446 are in different hospitals and 8,405 in home isolation. /IANS