À̹ÌÁö È®´ë Limited telemedicine services will become available as early as next month for overseas Korean residents under regulatory sandbox system enabling companies to test out remote doctoring, which until now could not take off due to strong opposition from medical industry.
The Korean government allowed hospitals to deliver telephone-based consults and prescriptions for some patients with chronic disease in February when the coronavirus began to ravage and introduced a regulatory sandbox system to the healthcare sector in June, allowing eligible companies to offer necessary technology for video-based healthcare services.
LifeSemantics which was granted a temporary license for its telemedicine business in June is due to sign a contract with Seoul National University Bundang Hospital late this month to facilitate webcam-based medical consults for overseas Korean residents, including dispatched construction workers and business travelers.
Under the system, patients will be able to use a remote healthcare app developed by LifeSemantics to receive the doctor¡¯s advice and prescription. Patient conditions will be defined by the hospital¡¯s family medicine department before appropriate telemedicine is initiated.
To expand the availability of these healthcare services, LifeSemantics said it will conclude contracts with Seoul St. Mary¡¯s Hospital and Asan Medical Center within this year and invite additional partner hospitals. LifeSemantics is also recruiting corporate customers from businesses with many workers overseas. LifeSemantics said that non-face-to-face medical services are highly effective and this could grow into a highly profitable market in the future given that there are more than 10,000 Korean resident workers out of the country and 2.7 million Korean people living overseas.
À̹ÌÁö È®´ë Neofect is another Korean company preparing to deliver online medical consults via webcam to patients in rehab after a stroke or neurological injury. The company¡¯s at-home rehab device called ¡®Smart Glove¡¯ and rehab training services were approved for a test-bed pilot under a regulatory sandbox system in June.
The service will start in March of next year after contracts are signed with partner hospitals. The company said it will supply smart gloves to more than 200 hospitals in Korea, which will be used to support remote rehab training for patients. The company¡¯s VR-based smart rehab solution provides various kinds of motion tasks with entertainment, which are designed to encourage the patient to move muscles and joints naturally as part of rehab exercise. Doctors and rehab specialists will give rehab training to patients while examining their condition over the Internet. Treatment expenses and device rental fees will be covered by health insurance.
By Kim Byung-ho and Minu Kim
[¨Ï Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]