- Good Doctor Technology Thailand successfully launched its collaboration with Bangpakok 8 Hospital (BPK8), and now invites other hospitals to join the program to expand accessibility of medical services across the healthcare continuum
- With an increased focus on hospital partnerships, Good Doctor Technology has established a mode of best practice for the industry regionally, with opportunity to scale up to meet healthcare demand while reducing hospital footfall
Bangkok, 1 June 2022 – Good Doctor Technology Thailand (GDTT), a subsidiary of Good Doctor Technology (GDT), a regional health-tech company with the vision of providing ‘One Doctor for One Family in SEA’, signed an agreement with Bangpakok 8 Hospital (BPK8) Bangkok. The agreement enables the hospital’s patients with SSO coverage from their employers to use online consultations provided by GDTT for acute diseases (not including trauma, emergency conditions and chronic disease).
The service will be available to patients under the Social Security Office (SSO) scheme which covers formal sector private employees for non-work related sickness. The scheme is financed by tripartite contributions from government, employers and employees, and compensates health care providers on a flat rate capitation basis to cover both ambulatory and inpatient care. A necessary result of this capitation payment system is that the insured need to be registered with a hospital under contract with the formal-sector healthcare system to receive medical treatment. However, due to the limited number of hospitals in the system, these hospitals tend to be overloaded with registered patients, which inevitably results in crowds, long waiting times and overwhelmed doctors and nursing staff.
The introduction of telemedicine services can reduce the pressure on medical facilities whilst providing the highest level of convenience and quality of care to patients. These benefits are expected to be amplified by the fact that a relatively high number of people go to hospitals for non-urgent or non-serious issues which can easily be managed or even resolved via tele consultations, and often require only the issuing of a prescription. The GDTT online services will help BPK8 address this by simplifying the process of obtaining primary care medical services by patients. The partnership will further relieve the pressure from the hospital, and thereby contribute to closing the healthcare accessibility gap in the entire country.
Dr. Sudhichai Chokekijchai, Head of Medical Team of Good Doctor Technology Thailand (GDTT), explained: “Our collaboration with Bangpakok 8 Hospital, and the successful implementation of the program through the Good Doctor Technology Thailand mobile application, has enabled us to set a new precedent for hospitals in Thailand which support SSO patients better through digital healthcare services such as telemedicine. With more hospital partnerships forged, we hope to continue our support in increasing the accessibility of quality healthcare services by more people by handling their primary care consuls and management for non-serious cases through our telemedicine services. Ultimately, we believe that by triaging the right care at the right time to people at any stage of their care journey, it will help to relieve the pressure on traditional healthcare facilities. With our experiences of handling Covid patients under the NHSO Home Isolation (HI) programme, we look forward to opening up our services to SSO patients and extend our care to them.”
Dr. Bhana Chandrakamol, CEO of Bangpakok Hospital group said, “Telemedicine is the most beneficial for patients who encounter difficulty in accessing health care services, especially for those who struggle to take time off work for medical purposes. In recognition of this problem, Banpakok Hospital Group has been focusing on using digital health technologies such as telemedicine to increase the accessibility of healthcare services. We are glad to partner with Good Doctor Technology Thailand (GDTT) who can provide timely medical care remotely through their telemedicine platform. We believe this pilot project will serve social security welfare patients better as we strive to achieve a new paradigm of future medicine with high quality and efficiency. Beyond the availability of the BPK connect Application at Bangpakok 9 International Hospital, social security welfare patients will now have access to GDTT’s telemedicine services at Bangpakok 8 Hospital. Through telemedicine, more employers will also benefit from higher productivity since simple diseases can be treated remotely.”
The collaboration also has the potential of providing multiple benefits to businesses who have staff members enrolled in the SSO plan. For these companies the service comes at no extra cost, and only requires a consent for unlocking the access to GDTT’s online consultations. Modernform, one of the first private sector employers to join the project, sees GDTT services as a way of addressing some business challenges: “A lot of time is wasted with employees queueing up in hospitals, waiting for referrals or speaking to a doctor about their health concerns during their busy work schedules. This inevitable affects productivity, and a less productive workforce can impact the success of the entire organisation due to significant levels of absenteeism, poor performance which will ultimately lead to a loss in business revenue,” said
Mr Jiruss Rianchaiwanich, Vice President of Human Resources and Administration from Modernform. “Now our employees who are registered with Bangpakok 8 Hospital will be able to access medical consultations right at their desk, if required. They are also able to receive medicine sent directly to the office”.
In Thailand and in other Asia-Pacific markets, GDT has observed a growing acceptance by policymakers and key sectoral decision-makers that “telehealth is here to stay”. Moreover, it has the demonstrable effectiveness, efficiencies and scalability to demonstrate its importance across the region and beyond. Good Doctor Technology believes that additional funding will be specifically allocated to the area of digital health provision in the near future, as it continues to showcase its ability to address critical SSO patient care demands, Simultaneously, it is also capable of unlocking many benefits for the hospitals it partners, as well as businesses whose staff have (and will) come to rely on SSO-oriented teleconsulting and smart technology for their primary healthcare needs and patient care pathways.
About Good Doctor Technology Thailand (GDTT)
Good Doctor Technology Thailand (GDTT) is a subsidiary company of a regional technology-backed and digital-first healthcare service provider, Good Doctor Technology (GDT). GDT is a joint venture company between China’s leading one-stop healthcare services platform, Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited and Grab Holdings Inc (“Grab”), the leading O2O platform in Southeast Asia, to deliver transformative online healthcare services. With the vision to provide “one family doctor for every family in South East Asia” and a mission to provide better access to affordable healthcare services for everyone, GDT launched in 2018 and established their headquarters in Singapore, before making its first debut in Indonesia the following year. Good Doctor Technology Thailand (GDTT) launched its operations in 2021 with a goal of untapping digital healthcare opportunities in the Kingdom and was soon accepted into the National Health Security Office (NHSO) Home Isolation (HI) Programme as a virtual healthcare service provider for COVID-19 patients in August 2021. Apart from the NHSO HI Programme, the Good Doctor service is available to people in Thailand via B2B partnership arrangements. For more information, visit: https://www.gooddoctor.health/
About Bangpakok 8 Hospital (BPK8)
Bangpakok8 Hospital is part of Bangpakok Hospital group, located in Bangbon District, Bangkok. We are a secondary and social security hospital, established in January 2005. The hospital has a total of 120 beds and accommodates 1,000 out-patients daily. Our in-patient specialties covers General Medicine, General Surgery ,Orthopaedic Surgery , Gynaecology, and Pediatrics. We also have a Mobile check-up Center and Emergency medical service (EMS) which provides 24/7 services for urgent patients and disasters in Bangbon and nearby communities. Our establishment is a “Hospital Accreditation“ or HA standard certified hospital. For more information, visit https://www.bangpakok8.com/
