The use of telemedicine and tech in remote Asia-Pacific facilities
Telemedicine is increasingly being used by remote facilities in the Asia-Pacific region to offer assistance to travellers. Cathy Hudson looks at the benefits, risks, and the extent to which it can assist them effectively
Telemedicine and other digital health solutions have revolutionised medical care, giving patients remote access to diagnosis and treatment wherever they are in the world. These solutions also allow them to benefit from the expertise of healthcare professionals and medical services not available where they are.
The global telemedicine market is booming and expected to be worth US$590.9 billion by 2032, up from $63.5 billion in 2022, according to a report from Market.US published in October 2023. While available before the Covid-19 pandemic, it was during this time that telemedicine really took off due to restrictions on in-person meetings and travel.
Assistance services are also making use of telemedicine to help travellers, not least in medical facilities in remote areas of the Asia-Pacific region that may not have the resources to provide the necessary medical assistance themselves.
The Asia-Pacific travel market is still recovering post-pandemic and has been slower to get back to where it was beforehand compared with other regions, but it will return to being the world’s largest by 2025, according to Phocuswright.
Data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) highlights that, although still behind pre-pandemic levels, air travel in the Asia-Pacific region is rebounding fast, with Asia-Pacific airlines seeing a 45.4% growth in air passenger traffic in January 2024 compared with the previous January. A large part of this growth can be attributed to China, which had only just started lifting Covid restrictions in January 2023.
The benefits of telemedicine were widely demonstrated during the pandemic and people became more comfortable with communicating online rather than face to face, so with traveller numbers to the Asia-Pacific region continuing to grow, the use of telemedicine to offer assistance there is set to keep growing too.
Why telemedicine is used in remote facilities
Telemedicine isn’t just for travellers to access medical assistance remotely when they can’t get to a medical facility, such as a hospital or clinic, or it’s more convenient than travelling to one – it can also be invaluable for the facilities themselves.
There are a number of reasons why insurers and their clients might need to use telemedicine. Chan Myae, Regional Network Manager for Asia at assistance provider AP Companies, which is based in Spain but has offices and representatives all over the world, said: “If they [insurers or customers] have no proper medical facilities or medical professionals then their only choice is to use telemedicine. Even if they do have them, there might be a language barrier to finding out about the symptoms and delivering a treatment plan.”
Using telemedicine means facilities can connect travellers with professionals who speak their language as well as having the credentials and expertise they need to help them. It’s also increasingly being used by remote facilities to give medical assistance to travellers who are unable to access telemedicine services themselves or get healthcare locally.
“Circumstances necessitating the use of telemedicine include when a traveller’s home-based medical assistance company does not offer telemedicine services, or when there are connectivity issues that hinder access to online healthcare advice,” said Jennifer Milton, CEO and Founder of German assistance company Compass Point Assist. “Moreover, the requirement for local medical expertise, such as knowledge about region-specific health risks, can offer invaluable insights and guidance tailored to the unique health challenges present in the Asia-Pacific region, ensuring that travellers receive informed and appropriate medical care,” she added.
The traveller might be in a high-risk area, such as a war zone or where a natural disaster has occurred. Telemedicine allows a remote facility to provide medical assistance if they can’t get a medical professional to them for safety reasons or due to insufficient resources. Assistance can also be more immediate as travellers don’t have to get anywhere before they can receive it.
The global telemedicine market is booming and expected to be worth US$590.9 billion by 2032
There are cost benefits too. Global medical costs grew significantly in 2023 compared with 2022, in part due to a spike in medical procedures and care that had been delayed during the pandemic and high global inflation, according to the WTW Global Medical Trends Survey of insurers. This year’s survey found that cost increases are set to ease in 2024, but medical costs are still expected to increase over the longer term.
Using telemedicine helps facilities cut their costs in a number of ways and can even prevent an emergency situation developing. Dan Green, Co-Founder and CTO of travel insurer Faye, which launched a telemedicine service in partnership with Air Doctor last year, commented: “The logistics are easier for everyone involved – you don’t have to maintain waiting rooms and people don’t have to get to you. It’s infrastructure you don’t have to use unless it’s necessary. Also, the cost is generally a lot more predictable.
“Making medical treatment so much more accessible means people might seek it more regularly, but there are lots of conditions where a call can tell them whether they definitely need to see someone or they definitely don’t. The recommendation might be to go to a facility but it avoids the cost of them going unnecessarily.”
How telemedicine works to assist travellers
Telemedicine can be accessed via a phone call or text message, online or using a smartphone app, which means it can be used whatever the local connectivity available. Technology is also becoming increasingly sophisticated, broadening the situations in which it can be used.
Telemedicine is particularly advanced in China, where internet hospitals are officially registered as hospitals and were comprehensively regulated by the Chinese government in 2018. They grew rapidly in number during the pandemic. According to the National Health Commission of China, there were 1,700 by the middle of 2022. Telemedicine is available across China through telemedicine networks. This means quality healthcare can easily be accessed in remote rural areas, where medical facilities are significantly lacking compared with cities.
Essential, based in Shanghai, is a provider of employee health benefits for companies. It provides telemedicine through WeChat, the Chinese app that combines messaging, voice and video calls, social media and more. “Within it, travellers can talk to a doctor and get appointments,” said Lily Chen, Essential’s Founder and Managing Director. “They can use telemedicine through messaging or a video call and can upload X-rays and other medical images.”
She added: “We provide services to health insurance companies offering cover in China, some of which also provide travel insurance, especially as a lot of Chinese companies are going overseas and sending local people to other countries.”
Other providers have a contact centre through which travellers get in touch initially, such as the Philippines-based BrightCare Assist, as its Vice President and Head of Marketing, Lawrence Sibayan, explained: “We have an omnichannel contact centre. For the majority of assistance, first contact is through email, call or text. Once you contact it, we can transfer you to a doctor right away. We’ve embedded video-conferencing platforms for healthcare providers and patients to use for consultations and provide a secure link for the patient that only they can access to keep the information private. If there’s no internet, they can use a regular phone call.”
He also added that telemedicine can then be complemented by remote care, as in many cases it doesn’t make sense for a patient to have a teleconsultation then be told to travel to a hospital to pick up medication or receive treatment. Medication can be delivered to them or they can receive a prescription digitally and collect the medication from somewhere nearby. Other treatment can be delivered via a home visit or they can attend a local facility as an outpatient.
There’s more advanced telemedicine technology too, including virtual clinics, dedicated mobile apps and systems that allow a healthcare provider to access data from a patient’s wearable device, such as their heart rate or oxygen saturation level. Artificial intelligence (AI) is also being used, and will increasingly be used to diagnose conditions, analyse health data and provide ever more sophisticated telemedicine.
CoverGo is a global insurtech company that helps insurers build and launch new health and other insurance products through its modular platform, allowing them to create more personalised and innovative products faster and handle claims better. Although the platform doesn’t offer telemedicine, it can integrate with telemedicine services from other companies to provide a seamless service to an insurer’s customers.
Limitations and risks of telemedicine
Although telemedicine and other digital health technologies offer a long list of benefits to remote facilities offering assistance, they can’t do everything. While telemedicine can effectively provide medical care for relatively minor ailments at one end of the spectrum and quickly arrange to get a patient to a hospital or repatriate them in an emergency situation at the other end, there are limitations when cases fall between the two extremes.
“Such cases often necessitate hands-on examination and treatment that cannot be provided through online consultations,” commented Milton. “This intermediate category underscores the necessity for a balanced healthcare approach for travellers, combining telemedicine with access to local healthcare facilities for comprehensive care.”
Getting a clear view of visible symptoms can be more difficult so there's a risk that diagnoses could be inaccurate
It’s harder to carry out meaningful diagnostics, such as taking a patient’s temperature or listening to their breathing, using telemedicine, although diagnostic tools are becoming increasingly available. Getting a clear view of visible symptoms can be more difficult so there’s a risk that diagnoses could be inaccurate.
Connectivity issues in remote areas can make telemedicine services unusable or disrupt consultations, leading to important information being missed or misinterpreted. Poor video quality can make evaluations more challenging. The necessary devices may not be available or there might be insufficient digital literacy.
Then there’s the issue of data privacy. It’s vital that patient information conveyed via telemedicine services is kept secure to comply with data protection regulations and safeguard patients’ privacy, and that providers only collect the minimum amount of data necessary. It’s also harder to keep information confidential when telemedicine is carried out via a telephone call.
It’s essential that the tech infrastructure being used is reliable too. Adrit Raha, CoverGo’s Managing Director for Asia-Pacific, said: “It’s important to adhere to data security standards, which is why we are ISO 27001 certified [a standard for information security management systems] and why we use certain cloud providers – we know their infrastructure is best in class.”
AP Companies also ensures it only uses trusted partners. “We don’t provide a medical consultation without a background check and audit of the provider,” said Myae. “We have a relationship with all the providers in our medical network. We trust them because we’ve audited them previously to check the standard of their care and make sure they are complying with the rules on data protection. We have a provider credentialling process that we apply each time we contract with a new medical provider.”
It’s clear that telemedicine is a valuable resource for remote facilities in providing assistance and an incredibly useful tool for travellers. However, providers need to ensure they carry out ongoing quality control and improvements to mitigate its limitations and reduce the risks involved.