Salceda files bill promoting development of telemedicine, e-health system in PH
MANILA, Philippines — Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Salceda has filed a bill that would enable the telemedicine and electronic health industry to expand in the country.
Salceda said House Bill No. 7422 or the Philippine E-Health and Telemedicine Development Act of 2020 would be beneficial as the country continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, especially as more services could be provided to underserved communities.
“The COVID-19 pandemic was the ultimate stress test for the public health system. It emphasized vulnerabilities in urgent need of change and action. One such area is the remote delivery of health services,” Salceda said in the bill’s explanatory note.
“Because our conventional health resources were occupied with pandemic treatment and management, most other medical needs have been sidestepped, both essential processes and elective procedures,” the lawmaker added, highlighting the need for alternatives to our traditional modes of healthcare delivery.
Salceda pointed out the “glaring geographical disparities” in terms of the distribution of basic medical facilities in the country.
Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in 2016, Salceda said there are 23.1 hospital beds per 100,000 people in the National Capital Region (NCR) compared to 8.2 hospital beds in the rest of Luzon, 7.8 in the Visayas, and 8.3 in Mindanao.
Further, Salceda said that parts of the country have difficulty attracting and retaining health professionals and supporting local health facilities.
“While the ‘Doctors for the Barrios’ programs and similar initiatives have encouraged heroic individuals to serve in underserved communities, clearly, a systemic solution is both a necessity and, given the high penetration rate of cellphones in the country, an opportunity,” Salceda said.
“Universal health care should not be dependent on the individual virtue and heroism of doctors, but on virtuous systems,” the lawmaker added.
Salceda said that while there are already existing telemedicine facilities in the country, such as the National Telehealth Center, the country has yet to have a telemedicine and eHealth framework.
“This bill aims to address this vacuum in regulatory framework by instituting a national policy framework for the regulation and promotion of eHealth as an industry and as a dependable health service system,” Salceda said.
In a separate statement, Salceda also said that telehealth systems would reduce cases of fraud in the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.(PhilHealth).
“Telehealth is harder to defraud. You need to connive with more people, in an easily verifiable system, where anomalies can be identified with data analytics. If ever fraud happens in the telehealth system, we can more easily catch them,” Salceda said.
Among the main features of the bill are as follows:
- Establishes the components of electronic health systems;
- Identifies the structure for leadership and governance of the sector, identifying the Department of Health (DOH) as its primary regulator, and setting fundamental policies for coordination and governance of the sector;
- Enables and regulates eHealth services and solutions;
- Sets basic sector standards and mechanisms for interoperability with conventional and other modes of healthcare service delivery, by defining standards of eHealth systems and services, and promoting synergies between different modes;
- Sets mechanisms for policymaking, monitoring, and compliance, including the formulation of required policies, guidelines, and compliance mechanisms to support the attainment of the quality and acceptable eHealth systems and services. This would also make telehealth services accredited with Philhealth;
- Promotes and regulates the necessary health and supporting infrastructure;
- Lays the regulatory foundations for human resources in the eHealth system;
- Develops a framework for strategy and investment in the eHealth sector; and
- Identifies strategies for industry development, such as promoting the accreditation of eHealth with insurance providers, training medical and non-medical support personnel, and ensuring eligibility to industry-promoting incentives.
