Stavros Athanasiou, President, Medgate Philippines

According to the Philippine Department of Health, the present doctor-to-patient ratio in Philippine is 1:33,000. Clearly, it is physically impossible for a single medical professional to provide face-to-face consultation to 33,000 patients. This ultimately leads to lower-quality care, time constraints on doctor-patient interactions, increased workload for healthcare practitioners, unnecessarily prolonged wait time,and higher prices for consultations. With all these factors adversely impacting the healthcare outcomes, telemedicine is being touted as a measure that can be adopted to ensure that every Filipino has access to immediate medical care. It can significantly improve the quality of healthcare by increasing accessibility and efficiency while eliminating geographic barriers and reducing costs. 

Taking this into consideration, some prominent companies are leveraging this revolutionary technology to break down the siloed healthcare delivery models and transform the connectivity between patients and healthcare providers.Leading this transformation is Medgate Philippines, a pioneering company that is offering preeminent telemedicine solutions to unclog the medical facilities for patients who need non-emergency consultation.Medgate is the leading international provider of telemedicine with operations in Switzerland, Germany, the Middle East, and the Philippines.Incepted in 2016, it offers robust, tried, and tested solutions for the delivery of high-volume teleconsultations to a large member base. Since its inception, Medgate has handled over 9 million teleconsultations globally.

“81% of our callers are treated medically – this means that our doctors are able to give consultation without referring them to a medical facility for further assessment or an emergency facility,” saysStavros Athanasiou, President at Medgate Philippines.

Delivering Convenient and Confidential Telemedical Consultations

Equipped with a team of licensed and certified healthcare professionals, Medgate offers high-quality, convenient, and confidential medical consultations to the patients over the phone. It allows members to have direct access to a qualified doctor for their daily health care needs without visiting a clinic or a hospital.The licensed doctors at Medgate are housed in a telemedicinecenter that protects the patient’s private medical data and all the teleconsultations are recorded and encrypted to ensure thesecurity and privacy of patients’ data.

 “Since our doctors collect private medical data, consent must be given by the patient and is incorporated in our process making sure to be completely compliant with the Philippine Data Privacy Act of 2012. Medgate has been registered with the National Privacy Commission since January 27, 2018,” asserts Stavros.

The Telemedicine platform at Medgate also prevents thephotos or screenshots of patient data and issues all the documents with a QR code for authenticity and fraud prevention. To further inhibit fraudulent activities, it employs tools that detect googled photos v/s genuine photos, digital rights management software to prevent unauthorized access to documents, as well as reporting protocols to report cases of suspected fraud to insurers and employers. 

Adopting Best Practices for Optimum Care

Being a founding member of the International Society for Telemedicine and E-health, Medgate works closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) and many national telemedicine organizations to establish best practices for the delivery of teleconsultations. It employs statistically-based clinical guidelines based on itsextensive experience of more than 9 million teleconsultations. These guidelines allow a General Practitioner to efficiently handle a specific case.

“Medgate does not rely solely on the knowledge of an individual doctor. It is dangerous from a medical liability perspective to rely only on the personal experience of an individual doctor. Instead, our doctors are able to lean on the body of work that our entire global organization generates, so our doctors can confidently diagnose and treat our patients,” explainsStavros.

Currently, the company covers over 1.5 million enrolled members in the Philippines. The Medgate Telemedicine Center and the Medgate Partner Network integrate their work closely to guarantee comprehensive health care for the patient.

Shaping the Future of Telemedicine

Today, as the world is grappling with the COVID-19 virus, the role of telemedicine has become more critical than ever.Being a trusted Telemedicine Provider of millions of Filipinos, Medgate is bringing its best effort to help and support people amid the ongoing dire health crisis. In fact, amongst the numerous telemedicine providers in the country, Medgate is one of only two companies that passed the rigorous accreditation by the Department of Health (DoH) and National Privacy Commission (NPC) to deliver teleconsultation services to Filipinos during the period of Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) and Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) implemented to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.With its remarkable contribution to healthcare, Medgate has carved a unique niche in the industry. Moving ahead, it aims to further continue focusing on improving healthcare accessibility in the country while offering the telemedical consultations of the highest standard.

“The goal of Medgate is to provide accessible healthcare to every Filipinos and to provide up-to-date trends in the space of Telemedicine,” concludes Stavros.