A glimpse into today’s telehealth transformation

As the Philippines marks its sixth month into community quarantine, the fear of getting sick remains widespread in the country. This poses an important question for Filipinos: How can people seek medical care without potentially exposing themselves to diseases once they step out of their homes? One answer is through Telehealth.

Simply put, telehealth is the delivery of healthcare-related services through telecommunications and digital platforms. It has the potential to improve patients’ access to quality, cost-effective health services, especially those who are in isolated communities. Telehealth is sometimes used interchangeably with telemedicine, but it’s good to note that there are differences between the two.

Telemedicine is the remote consultation, diagnosis, and treatment of patients through telecommunications technology. Telehealth refers to a wider variety of healthcare practices and services, which includes telemedicine, mobile health applications, patient portals, and remote patient monitoring, to name a few.

In the Philippines, the adoption of telehealth and telemedicine has accelerated notably due to COVID-19. During the first month of the pandemic, the Department of Health (DOH) called for telehealth companies who provide free primary care teleconsultations to further promote telehealth in the country. To further encourage health companies to practice telemedicine, DOH and the University of the Philippines – Manila have also released guidelines on the practice of telemedicine in the country.

This push for telehealth is timely, as it is one way of alleviating the surge of patients that hospitals are seeing due to the pandemic. With telehealth, Filipinos, especially those who are at risk, can stay at home and lessen their exposure to potential diseases they might catch outside. It also helps with the issue of mobility, as there are some who don’t have the means to travel to medical facilities given the community quarantine.

Telehealth and telemedicine are still new practices for some Filipinos, but there are already promising platforms and applications in the country that make their practices accessible to them. Here are four examples:

House MD

House MD is an application that lets doctors bring healthcare back into the Filipino home, and gives patients primary care without them needing to venture outside. With House MD, patients can set home visits with doctors who are in their vicinity. House MD’s doctors provide primary care services and can also perform simple procedures like catheter replacement and wound dressing.

Mindcare Club

The Mindcare Club is a telemental health service website. Because mental health is just as important as physical health, the Mindcare Club has created a network of psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors in the Philippines. Through this website, patients can seek counseling, treatment, and therapy that can address their mental health needs.

MedCheck

MedCheck is a platform that provides cloud-based electronic medical records (EMR) software, insights on clinical data, and a telemedicine platform. These tools and products that can help medical professionals improve their services and make data-driven decisions. By accelerating the exchange of clinical data, MedCheck seeks to unify the theory and practice of precision medicine.

MedGrocer

MedGrocer is an online pharmacy that lets patients find the medicine they need and have it delivered right at their doorstep. This makes buying medicine easy and convenient. MedGrocer also offers its services to businesses when it comes to corporate healthcare and the management of company clinics. 

These innovations show that when technology and medicine are integrated, it can greatly improve the accessibility of healthcare as well as the processes involved in facilitating it. The accelerated digital transformation of the industry brought about by COVID-19 should be a stepping stone to further improving the system that the country currently has in place. Ultimately, this will result in a better chance of improving the Filipino people’s quality of life.