Battling COVID-19 with the utilisation of telemedicine services

True Digital Group’s “Digital Health” has become Thailand’s leading telemedicine transformation solution since the onset of the pandemic.

With the closure of borders and staggered workforce amidst the pandemic, healthcare practitioners and facilities have had to rely on online and virtual technologies to continue their services to the public. The practice of telemedicine has become more apparent since then, with many hospitals undertaking initiatives for this.

In 2020, True Digital Group leveraged its stance on health tech innovations and established, “Digital Health” – a business unit focusing on transforming the healthcare landscape across Thailand and Southeast Asia with digital technologies. With this aim, True Digital Group’s Digital Health unit has introduced digital healthcare solutions and platforms for both providers and patients across the country, with “True HEALTH” – its all-in-one telemedicine platform, spearheading the mission.  

In the burst of COVID-19, True HEALTH played an important role in lessening the added risks for further infections at hospitals and health facilities by tapping into its telemedicine capability and helping Thailand’s major hospitals pre-screening patients with potential infection – consequently reducing the number of foot traffic at hospitals, alleviating stress for healthcare personnel, and improving medical resources management. During the peak of the pandemic in 2021, customised telemedicine apps were developed for Chulalongkorn Hospitals and the other 24 hospitals to meet the crucial needs of each facility.

For the general public and employee benefit for enterprises, True HEALTH mobile application, which was rebranded as “MorDee” in early 2022, provides Thais and foreigners with easier access to top-quality medical services at your fingertips via secured video call, voice call, and online chat, from over 500 doctors and medical experts from many leading hospitals and healthcare institutes in over 20 medical specialities, including specialised clinics ranging from physical to mental health. The application offers key features from on-demand teleconsultation, appointment scheduling at your preferred time, keyword search that matches your symptoms with corresponding doctors and experts, medication home delivery, “TeleMediclaim+” where medical expenses can be claimed directly and in real-time within the application from our network of partnered insurance companies, and medical record tracking where users can access by themselves at any time.

MorDee also expands its collaboration network by welcoming new partners across industries such as insurances providers, healthcare providers and business organisations to help fulfil the possibilities of digital healthcare services and improve the quality of employees’ health benefits under the efficiency of cost and time.

To address the public's lack of digital literacy and smartphone access, "True HEALTH Corner" was installed in 31 local pharmacies across Thailand, equipped with touchscreens, tablets, and IoT-enabled medical examination devices for vital signs, blood pressure, and body analyser to help people gain more access to continuing healthcare with the help of their local pharmacies.

Meanwhile, the unsettling environment created by the epidemic has had an impact on people's mental health. In Thailand, the number of people phoning a suicide hotline has more than tenfold increased by 2021. People who were stressed and anxious about their job stability and uncertainties were at a higher risk of depression.

True Digital Group, keen to assist, reached out to provide a mental health consultation option on its telemedicine application as part of the updated employee health benefits for businesses. Through its partnerships with major health insurance companies, True HEALTH mobile application (now MorDee) reached people in the workforce and provided them with better access to mental healthcare in their own time and space with less worry about medical expenses.

True Digital Group has gradually developed new products and services to expand its telemedicine skills, and it is now one of Thailand's leading telemedicine transformation solutions, with an end-to-end, O2O solution that has revolutionised the country's healthcare sector.

True Digital Group received recognised for this ground-breaking endeavour when it was named Telemedicine Platform Initiative of the Year - Thailand at the Healthcare Asia Medtech Awards 2022.

The awards program seeks to recognise Medtech firms that have overcome the challenges posed by the COVID-19 epidemic by developing ground-breaking products, solutions, and activities to better serve their clients while remaining steady amid the crisis.