MANILA, PHILIPPINES – With the steady rise of COVID-19 cases, medical and pharmaceutical services have never been more important. However, going to clinics and seeing doctors in person may pose risks. Many Filipinos are anxious, especially those who may need to see a doctor during this pandemic.
The pandemic has been a driving force to many digital innovations in the world, including telehealth. Globe myBusiness recognizes the need of its SME customers to provide health benefits to their businesses’ employees and as such, partnered with KonsultaMD, the country’s pioneer in telehealth. It conducted an online seminar to enable entrepreneurs to explore benefit options for their employees’ health.
The webinar entitled Telehealth in the PH: Protecting Your Business and Your Employees aimed to help entrepreneurs take care of the health conditions of their employees. The online event featured a powerhouse of resource speakers from the Department of Health (DOH), KonsultaMD, and Globe Telecom, and was moderated by Apple Mendoza.
The first speaker was Dra. Beverly Ho, Director IV at the DOH, who discussed the basics of telemedicine and how the need for it has been accelerated by the COVID pandemic.
She defined the concept as delivering healthcare at a distance through telecommunication or digital means. The need for telemedicine comes from the DOH’s goal of bringing Universal Health Care (UHC) to Filipinos, which is a combination of better health outcomes, responsive health system, and financial risk protection. Telemedicine, then, contributes to the goal by improving access to services, maximizing available resources, and coordinating end-to-end service delivery across facilities.
She then gave a brief history of the concept, and discussed the remaining challenges we face today with regard to telehealth. All in all, she painted a clear picture of where the Philippines is in terms of telehealth services, what milestones our country has already achieved, and how things could still improve.
Following Dra. Ho was Alfie Paulino, Sales Manager of Globe Telehealth Inc. She discussed how, KonsultaMD, a subsidiary of the Ayala Group under 0917 Ventures, can help Filipinos.
KonsultaMD would like to create a new normal for businesses by providing them with 24/7 access to local doctors anytime, anywhere, making it easier and more convenient for employees to stay healthy and engaged in their health care. On the side of the business owners, this means increased productivity, and accurate health services for the employees they value. It’s fair to note that they also have the lowest subscription rates in the market at only P1/day.
The value proposition behind all this is avoiding hospitals in the time of the pandemic and subsequently avoiding the risk of getting infected. Additionally, not every symptom requires a visit to the doctor, so phoning in a consultation saves time, money and effort on the part of the patient, without skimping on accuracy and effectiveness. Finally, it allows people living in places where doctors cannot be physically present to still be able to consult with a physician, be it over the phone or online.
Rounding up the panel of speakers was Nicola Ebrada, Industry Manager at Globe myBusiness. She enumerated the digital tools offered by Globe myBusiness to entrepreneurs, focusing on those that would improve resilience and augment business continuity. With solutions like the e-commerce platform Rush E-Store, the Facebook Ad Creator, the Rush Loyalty rewards system, the AMBER Automated SMS Blaster, the Virtual Private Cloud, Backup-as-a-Service, contactless payment through GCash, collaboration tools like Office 365 and GSuite, and various Cybersecurity or HR solutions, business owners can surely leverage on technology to overcome any limitations placed on their businesses by the pandemic.
Overall, the event was educational and highly useful for the audience of entrepreneurs.
