Ayala unit unveils new technology platform

MANILA, Philippines — Ayala Corp., through its healthcare arm, AC Health, has unveiled a technology platform called Vigos Health Technologies which may be described as a Facebook of sorts for doctors and patients with the end goal of creating an integrated healthcare ecosystem that is accessible to Filipinos. 

 In an interview with The STAR, AC Health officials said Vigos Health has various components that would serve as the technological backbone for the company’s target of establishing 1,000 Generika pharmacies and 100 FamilyDoc clinics by 2020.

“We are on target. We are growing nicely. FamilyDoc is even ahead of its target,” AC Health chief digital officer Christian Besler said.

For this year alone, Generika has a target to grow to 850 branches by yearend from 765 at present, while FamilyDoc is targeting to have 54 branches by yearend from 34 at present.

Generika is AC Health’s retail pharmacy network, while Family Doc is its chain of primary care clinics.

“The key driver is really to get the cost of medicine and healthcare down and improve the accessibility to Filipinos,” Besler said.

By 2020, AC Health envisions to be the leading healthcare network with the widest reach, improving patient experience from end-to-end by providing quality and affordable healthcare.

Integral to achieving this goal is the technology platform provided by Vigos.

Vigos Health Technologies’ portfolio includes Vigos EMR, which is a proprietary electronic medical record and clinic information system.

Furthermore, Vigos Health proposes a digital solution to important points in employee health care and management.

It would allow holistic management of employee health, health insights, compliance to reporting standards, opportunity costs and quality consultation.

“Vigos makes health care digital so doctors can easily check your records. We tried it out in Family Doc and now we spun it off as Vigos Health,” Besler said

The company is in the process of offering it to other doctors as well so they can join the platform through a subscription fee. This would provide doctors access to patients’ medical records and patients would be able to easily connect with their doctors online.

“The benefit for the patients is that the doctor can provide you better quality of care. The doctor has a better picture of you, if he has access to your records,” Besler said.

To put it simply, he likened Vigos EMR to a Facebook of sorts for doctors and patients. 

The company has made it available with a subscription price and is targeting individual doctors and HMOs to avail of the system.

“The target is to get as many doctors as possible,” he said.

With Vigos EMR, patients can track their health at the palm of their hands.

It will also enable them to book a doctor for a face to face consultation or video, order medicines online, manage health records and track medication intake, among others, AC Health said.