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Apollo TeleHealth Services has inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with TeleHealthcare Malaysia under which it will set up 100 tele-clinics in that country.
The objective is to provide remote multi-specialty care and consultation to 30 lakh people. The partnership is part of the organisation’s broader plan to scale up its reach to touch 2.5 crore lives globally by 2022.
Established in 1999, Hyderabad-based Apollo TeleHealth is a multi-specialty telemedicine network which is accessed in as many as 48 countries. A unit of Apollo Hospitals, it has been providing tele-education and telementoring services as well.
According to Vikram Thaploo, Chief Executive Officer, “Our objective is to expand the reach to as many as 25 million (2.5 crore) lives by 2022 through a series of initiatives in India and abroad. In line with this objective, we will operationalise 100 tele-clinics in a phased manner by the end of 2020 in Malaysia.”
Eight of these centres will be piloted by March. Overall, Apollo TeleHealth aims to add 5,000 points of presence globally over the next two years, he said in a statement. The centres in Malaysia that are planned to be located at a distance of 50 km each will provide teleconsultations in multiple specialties including endocrinology, nephrology, cardiology and orthopaedics.
“Public health delivery is affected deeply by economic and geographical disparities. Not only does India face a shortage of healthcare practitioners, but it also faces the problem of inequitable availability with almost 70 per cent of available doctors concentrated in urban areas. At Apollo TeleHealth, we have been adopting technology to act as a major leveller in reducing disparity and inequitable access,” said Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director of Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Ltd.
Within India, Apollo TeleHealth is available to almost 70 crore Indians remotely through a series of initiatives including 2.5 lakh common service centres at Gram Panchayat levels, and 183 electronic Urban Primary Health Centres (eUPHCs) that provide essential primary healthcare to people, Thaploo said.
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