DOH provide free primary care teleconsultation
Health care providers are currently experiencing a surge of consults regarding COVID-19. This is particularly true for hospitals. Many of theseconsults can be managed at the primary care level.
To alleviate surge and minimize risks posed by unnecessary traffic in hospitals and enable effective community quarantine, the DOH recognizes the role of telemedicine, particularly primary care teleconsultation.
The Department of Health is currently finalizing guidelines that will:
1. further, promote use of teleconsultation;
2. match health professional volunteers to telehealth
providers/companies;
3. assure that protocols of telehealth providers/companies are aligned
with latest DOH-approved algorithms;
4. link telehealth initiatives with the _regional/provincial/local
epidemiological surveillance teams to facilitate contact tracing and
surveillance activities; and
5. collect data to propose improvements in future iterations of
PhilHealth’s primary care benefit package.
The DOH lauds telehealth providers/companies providing consultation since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. The DOH is partnering with KonsultaMD and Medifi, among others, who have expressed providing their telemedicine services for free. Other telemedicine providers who will provide free medical consultation through telemedicine will be announced soon.
In view of further expanding such initiatives, the DOH calls on all
telehealth providers/companies who have and will continue to provide free primary care teleconsultation from March to June 2020 to reach out to [email protected] gmail.com.
