RELIANCE Care Inc. (RCI), a subsidiary of the United Laboratories (Unilab), will invest P500 milliom in the next two years as part of expanding its presence to address the growing health requirements of people outside Metro Manila.
“We are in the process of building additional multispecialty clinics and facilities in response to the demand of the people in the southern part of Metro Manila and nearby areas,” RCI General Manager David San Pedro told the media in recent press briefing in Mandaluyong City.
San Pedro said the Philippines is a perfect market for health-technology solutions as its predominantly young population is facing health issues, such as hypertension, diabetes, cardio vascular disease, among others. “With a 105 million people, the recipe for health does not look good,” he said.
He said RCI will promote the outpatient health-care services to enable the people to access affordable health care to the patients. As an a outpatient, an individual will pay 30-percent less of his medical cost compared to if he’s confined in the hospital.
San Pedro said RCI just finished its ninth outpatient clinic in the Lima Technology Center in Cebu. It is also completing the construction of its 100-seat capacity dialysis center in Dasmariňas, Cavite. He added RCI will build more outpatient clinics in southern Metro Manila as the demand increases.
RCI also announced the formation of a strategic partnership with Philips Philippines to supply its HealthFirst multispecialty clinics and HealthFirst Device Centers with Philips medical devices, clinical workflow software and providing training to RCI health-care professionals.
Philips Philippines Country Manager and Health Systems Lead Ashwin Chari said the strong emphasis of the company on research and development helps in producing equipment for developing markets.
“Bringing in quality health equipment is just one element to the equation in this collaboration. What we are poised to deliver are solutions to work across the whole patient journey from home to hospital and back home,” he said.
Diederik Zeven, general manager, health systems, Philips Asean Pacific, said the company is also in the forefront using artificial intelligence to help patient management.
“I prefer to call it adaptive technology instead of artificial intelligence. It helps nurses detect early signs of the deterioration of the patient’s condition,” he said.
San Pedro said RCI will also explore offering Philips sleep-therapy solutions at its clinics and integrate Philips’s latest health-technology solutions on wearable sensors, patient monitoring, ultrasound, data analytics and AI.