There’s potential for telemedicine, mobile health in Philippines, says medical expert

A country like the Philippines can benefit from digital health technologies, particularly telemedicine and mobile health, according to a medical expert.

“There’s a real potential to do that here in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Philippines, where you have a large population, it’s very geographically dispersed, maybe people have to travel long distances to access good quality care,” said Dr. Mobasher Butt, chief medical officer at Babylon Health, a UK-based health service provider that provides remote consultations solutions with doctors and health care professionals.

“When you think of the situation, there’s definitely a need for good quality mobile (health) care,” Dr. Butt told GMA News Online during a PRUWise webinar on Thursday.

“Lots of different products and services (work) together to provide a full, end-to-end integrated solution. We would love to do that in the Philippines,” he added.

Telemedicine is the practice of caring for patients remotely with the use of telecommunications technology, while mobile health or mHealth refers to medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices.

In the Philippines, some doctors, hospitals, and health care institutions have been using telemedicine and teleconsultations even before the pandemic.

With the COVID-19 outbreak, many hospitals ramped up their digital health services, including Makati Medical Center, The Medical City, and UST Hospital in Metro Manila; and Batangas Medical Center and Northern Mindanao Medical Center in Luzon and Mindanao, among other private and public hospitals all over the Philippines. 

The Department of Health also launched teleconsultation hotlines in April as the pandemic spread across the country.

Andrew Wong, Prudential Corp. Asia chief health officer, said during the webinar that some of the challenges for Filipinos included the huge population, lack of access to health care, and being underinsured.

In February, Pru Life UK and Babylon Health launched Pulse, a health app that uses AI and assessment tools to help users check on their condition and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Apart from its symptom and health check features, the app also offers a COVID-19 protection plan to Filipino users for free as a limited offer.

This plan is available to everyone, even if they’re not customers of Pru Life UK.

The Pulse app, which originated in Malaysia and is being made available to more countries, has localized features to better serve the needs of the Filipinos.

“These questions are curated by doctors. We work with local teams of clinicians in the Philippines, and they help us ensure that these products are localized to meet the needs of the population that they’re going to serve and that they’re appropriate and relevant for the health conditions that exist in that country,” said Dr. Butt.

Apart from Pulse, the chief medical officer said they’re working to find other ways to provide health care to more Filipinos using digital technology.

“We have been in conversation with a number of interested parties working to improve the health care of Filipinos,” he said.

In the same webinar, Dr. Eric Tayag of the Department of Health said the government didn’t want those with limited access to health care and technology “to be left behind.”

Telecommunications group PLDT-Smart’s chief information security officer, Angel Redoble, meanwhile, said the company was working on deploying satellite-based internet where fixed line services were not available. – GMA News