By Jonnah Lynne Pante Aiming to be one of the catalysts in the improvement of the country’s healthcare services, Philippine-based telehealth service provider Kitika is set to officially launch its mobile application on September 29. Medical Director Ferdinand Abella, M.D., and Managing Director & Co-Founder Jerome Sebastian Utilizing technology to bring healthcare even to the remote areas of the country, Kitika offers unlimited chat, call, and video call features wherein patients can speak to a doctor anytime of the day and anywhere through a landline or using their laptops or smartphones. According to Jerome Sebastian, Kitika Managing Director and Co-Founder, the app intends to lessen the need of Filipinos to spend a significant amount of time to actually go to a hospital and avoid self-diagnosis.   “We’re not trying to replace the traditional way of seeing a doctor. We’re here to provide another solution in case patients can not visit a doctor or a hospital. We’re an alternative solution complementing the traditional way of seeing a doctor in a hospital,” said Sebastian.   “What we’re trying to do is to give solutions to Filipino people who don’t have access to a doctor,” shared Dr. Ferdinand Abella, Kitika Medical Director. “Healthcare is really expensive and that’s what we’re trying to address in this app. We want to bridge the patients with a primary physician to at least do an initial impression rather than asking the kapitbahay.” Kitika has an in-house team of general medical practitioners available 24/7 to assist a patient from triage and assessment of health concerns, direct doctor consultation and specialist referrals, and issuance of e-prescription and medical certificates. Sebastian also mentioned that Kitika is one way of educating the Filipino people about telehealth care, an industry considered to be in its infancy stage. “We want to be able to have telehealth universally- or globally-standardized. By the end of 2020, we aim to have every area in the Philippines to have access to Kitika. We’re also looking at the end of the year for telehealth to be mainstream, also in line with the Universal Healthcare Law,” he said. Healthcare for all While Kitika isn’t the first to introduce telehealth in the country, Sebastian detailed that their services offer a more inclusive approach. As an example, Kitika doesn’t restrict the dependents of the subscribers to immediate family members. “Every dependent or member or manager of the subscription should have their own profile. But in the case of a lolo or a baby who doesn’t have email, the family manager can be the one to consult a doctor on behalf of the patient or the dependent,” he mentioned. “If you have a son that’s eighteen years old and has a mobile phone who can download the app and use the services on his own, he can be considered as a family member. At the same time, with your friends, if your friends live with you, there’s no problem.” Sebastian also noted pricing as Kitika’s advantage. A basic plan on Kitika starts at PhP 959 per year for a primary holder with four dependents, PhP 1,299 a year for a primary holder and six dependents for their premium plan, while the executive plan costs PhP 1,599 annually for a primary holder with nine dependents. Medical records secure Given that Kitika works on the digital platform, Sebastian assured that personal and medical data of patients are encrypted and secure. “We’re very data privacy-compliant. As a technology company, we thrive on that, making sure that our data is encrypted,” he said. “We also have the ability to integrate. We’re able to integrate with other platforms or other healthcare providers to have their own app integrate our systems together so that we could make the customer experience more convenient.”