The consolidation of KonsultaMD, HealthNow and AIDE – three of the country’s market-leading digital health apps – is expected to help the government lead the country’s development of a productive, resilient, equitable and people-centered health system.
This follows the integration of the three applications into one KonsultaMD superapp, bringing together KonsultaMD’s expertise in on-demand consultations, HealthNow’s strength in medicine delivery, and AIDE’s mastery of providing health services in the home.
The consolidation will expand the reach of reliable telehealth services across the country, particularly in underserved areas.
“We are starting to see telehealth everywhere,” said KonsultaMD CEO Cholo Tagaysay, “With this consolidation, we hope to accelerate the adoption of telehealth even further and move closer to providing healthcare for all Filipinos.”
Dr. Enrique A. Tayag, Director of the Department of Health’s Knowledge Management and Information Technology Service, said telehealth should be an enabler of primary care.
“Telehealth has been in the Philippines for the last 15 years, but many telehealth projects have been small-scale and donor-funded. Thus, the impact is short-lived and telehealth projects did not scale that much,” said Tayag at the closing event for the consolidation held recently.
With the private sector coming into the picture, Tayag explained that they are now seeing a different model of implementing telehealth. This puts the government in a better position to guide telehealth’s safety, quality, and efficiency through transparent regulations.
“Overall, we want to see more of these in the coming future. And we know that KonsultaMD is actively taking part in this telehealth ecosystem,” he shared.
Tayag explained that they had just released guidelines on implementing telemedicine in the delivery of services, together with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), which will help more local government units in planning and managing telehealth services at the barangay level.
“Consistent with the universal healthcare (UHC) directions, we encourage KonsultaMD and its partners HealthNow and AIDE to charge the DOH, including the DILG and PhilHealth, as allies in its telehealth innovations.”
The KonsultaMD superapp, packed with first-in-the-market features on end-to-end patient care aimed at improving the country’s healthcare landscape, will launch in the first quarter of 2023.
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