Group A

Importance of Telemedicine in the Philippines During The Pandemic

COVID-19 has created a huge number of impediments for citizens who require medical service due to the risk of contracting the disease from compromised patients in their local healthcare institutions.

Telemedicine brings medicinal treatment to the patient. It was April of 2020 when DOH launched a round-the-clock telemedicine hotline for Metro Manila residents aimed to provide medical advice whether it's COVID-19 related or not, with doctors standing by to answer inquiries (DOH, 2020).

In addition, the DOH’s telemedicine project has been widely recognized as a means of simplifying patient referral systems by eliminating the hand-to-hand transfer of records through the use of electronic transmission; lessening the struggles for a patient who seeks medical care. One of the goals of the health organizations in the Philippines is to limit the number of cases of people acquiring the epidemic disease, thus the need for face-to-face consultations will be minimized through telemedicine as well.

Hospital institutions offering Telemedicine services

Telemedicine has been widely used in various institutions particularly concerning the ones offering health-related services. One of the most popular organizations in the Philippines utilizing the use of telemedicine is the Department of Health providing free teleconsultations. The following institutions also established the use of telemedicine in their health care provision towards their consumers (eCompareMo, 2020; Medical Pinas, 2020):

The Department of Health (DOH) in partnership with the National Privacy Commission (NPC) have created programs boosting the telemedicine services in the region to have a more precise control over the growing number of cases of people acquiring the COVID-19. They have employed medical consultations over phone, chat and short messaging service (SMS) as well as on other audio and video conferencing platforms. The DOH, according to its website, entails that they are maximizing the use of technology on connecting the public to medical professionals for better and more secured medical advice in line with their goals of inhibiting the growing number of COVID-19 cases (DOH, 2020).