A satellite-based e-health platform was installed in the rural hospital of German Doctors for Developing Countries in Buda, Marilog District, Davao City.
Launched last Friday in a press briefing at the Seda-Abreeza Hotel, the e-health solution dubbed as Satmed was made possible by SES, a Luxembourg-based satellite operator in partnership with the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.
“This (Satmed) is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, and we deployed it in Buda as we partnered with German Doctors, a non-government organization (NGO) that has an operating hospital in the area for some 10 years now,” Glenn Tindall, SES Vice President of Sales for Asia-Pacific said.
He emphasized that with health services remain the problem in the remote areas in Mindanao, Satmed will help augment healthcare provision and deliver accessible e-health services to remote areas in Mindanao “by enabling multiple medical applications and tools integrated on a single platform over satellite broadband services.”
“When the product (Satmed) was introduced it went very well as the staffs in the hospital are very engaged in it,” he said.
The e-health platform was developed by SES Techcom Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES. It was funded by the Luxembourg government.
“We are in the training stage, we are brainstorming with the staffs what are the best possibilities to improve ourselves by utilizing Satmed and we are thankful to SES that they are open in adapting our needs,” Dietmar Vorburg Schug, the Philippine director for the Committee of German Doctors for Developing Countries, for his part, said.
He added that Satmed will greatly capacitate their health services as terrestrial connections in remote areas like in Buda are not reliable.
The solution also enables digital imaging, e-learning and consultation and other e-health solution, available to the local medical community.
With the new health solution, German Doctors can now use portable devices such as tablets to collect the patient’s data. The data collected will be processed, aggregated and synchronized securely on Satmed’s cloud platform.
“This enables German Doctors to communicate with doctors and medical experts around the world via video conferencing,” Tindall said.
Schug said the 35-bed hospital in Buda caters to 140 patients per day in the out-patient department. The hospital currently has 40 staff.
“We offer our services for free with P20 million annual budget,” he said adding that there are at least 200,000 people living within the catchment area of their Buda Community Health Care Center, half of these are indigenous people.
The hospital caters to IP patients from Arakan in North Cotabato, Kitaotao in Bukidnon, and Marilog in Davao City.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Ace June Rell S. Perez
Quelle/Source: Sun.Star, 24.07.2016
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