Metro pacific hospitals explore telemedicine, remote patient care
METRO Pacific Hospitals Holdings Inc. (MPHHI) is stepping up efforts to find a “new normal” solution that will serve as a common platform for its member hospitals to keep hospitals and health-care footfall to minimum.the group is introducing virtual consultation to other capabilities such as e-pharmacy, mobile laboratories, remote patient monitoring and continuity of care beyond the hospital room.
Long touted as a means to provide health-care for the needy in far-flung or underserved areas, telemedicine is currently viewed as a way to cope with an overwhelmed health system dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The country’s health-care system faces unprecedented challenges because of the ongoing pandemic, caused by a virus that is unfamiliar, and seems easily transmitted,” warned Metro Pacific Investment Corp. (MPIC) Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan when he designated Mphhi-owned Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital (OLLH) as the group’s main Covid referral facility in March.
Three months into the Covid-19 pandemic, MPHHI is now seriously looking into possible modern information and communication technologies to connect medical professionals with patients in lieu of actual physical meetups in hospitals or clinics.
“MPHHI believes that using telemedicine and remote patient monitoring for management of chronic diseases can minimize, though not totally prevent, physical visits of patients to healthcare facilities,” said Eriene C. Lao, chief information officer of MPHHI.
Lao revealed that some hospitals in the group have already deployed telemedicine solutions for virtual consultation, but noted that these solutions were mainly developed in-house.
As a group initiative, she said MPHHI, is in the process of selecting the most feasible solution that will serve as a common platform for the MPHHI hospitals.
‘Healing at a distance’ “TELEMEDICINE may be our new normal,” said Lao. “It augments the delivery of primary health-care most especially in our country, where the doctor to patient ratio is a challenge.”
She acknowledged that telemedicine, literally meaning “healing at a distance”, could hold the promise of delivering patient-centered care in a post-pandemic era, with its advantages.
Lao explained that telemedicine, and remote patient monitoring, could allow for better management of chronic diseases earlier, and prevent patients from showing up in a health-care setting that can expose them to the Covid-19 virus.
“We feel there are business and operational opportunities here,” she said. “Hospitals can optimize the utilization of their bed capacity, improve the efficiency of the health-care workers, allow collaboration of medical team from different hospitals and give remote hospitals access to more experienced medical practitioners in big hospitals.”
face-to-face with docs
LAO cautioned, however, that while the new normal following the pandemic may see patients being encouraged to consult doctors through telemedicine, face-to-face interaction between a doctor and a patient still retains considerable importance.
For now, she said physicians at the MPHHI hospitals group are strongly advised on safety protocols such as limiting to five patients daily, observing physical distancing, wearing of personal protective equipment (PPE), and changing gowns after every other patient.