During the tumultuous times of the Covid-19 pandemic, people have been adapting to a new way of life centred on contactless interactions. As lockdowns and meeting restrictions were put in place everywhere, people were forced to stay at home except for the direst of circumstances. In Singapore, health-risk patients due for checkups were advised to either reschedule their appointments or engage the doctor in a tele-consultation where reports would be read out to them, and medication was dispensed on a later date to avoid face to face interactions. In light of such a crisis, and the need to keep the global economy and supply chains running, food deliveries, work meetings, classroom lessons, and even medical consultations has taken to telecommunication devices in both audio and video formats, allowing clients and providers to both interact directly from the safety of their own environment.
Case in point: MyCLNQ Health, an application focused on Digital Healthcare Ecosystem Including Tele-Monitoring and Tele-medicine. Founded by Mr Anwar Rafique and Mr Gangesh Jha, MyCLNQ Health currently has over 120,000+ users around Singapore.
Described as an application meant to give users easy access to affordable healthcare, MyCLNQ Health has served well by linking many users with healthcare professionals to help with their medical needs, with two physical clinics at Ang Mo Kio and Hougang.
The main motivation behind MyCLNQ Health was the desire to provide digital choices when it comes to seeking consultations for medical purposes, and reduce the distance between patients and healthcare providers. Riding on the digital healthcare boom, the two also saw this as an opportunity to give back to the community. Explaining that this application also allows patients to have access to these affordable services from the comfort of their own home, making it easier for patients with mobility concerns to reduce the inconvenience for their much-needed consultations.
Before forming the company, Mr Anwar and Mr Gangesh were classmates during their management school. With a friendship of over seven years, and a shared enthusiasm and synergy towards healthcare, they decided to work together focusing on digitalization of primary care. They were also part of raiSE Singapore, a social enterprise, and have experience working with similar enterprises to benefit their patients.
Although they initially had few ideas for digital healthcare transformation before the pandemic, Covid-19 forced them to accelerate the transition. As other industries started earlier, Healthcare was lagging in digitalization. However, clinics and providers soon
decided to throw caution to the wind by welcoming the digital choices while still providing convenient and affordable healthcare costs.
Initially, it was difficult getting providers on board with the lack of doctors present. It also took a while to introduce partners to the concept of telemedicine. Patients had doubts, with a handful wondering if a teleconsultation would be as effective as a traditional face-to-face consultation. Fortunately, these doubts were put to rest following the continuous success, and cooperation between patients and providers. All it took was patience from both ends.
As business owners, their responsibilities include finding providers to partner with end users to access them on the application. As the process not only consist of doctors but laboratories and other healthcare providers, the entire chain needs to be filled and boundaries covered for the end-user to access a one-stop service in MyCLNQ Health.
What differentiates MyCLNQ Health from its competitors? MyCLNQ Health provides a series of end-to end digital healthcare choices, using methods to synthesise medical data for their patients to create a precise diagnosis. MyCLNQ Health’s team ensures that checks are done within the app and system regularly, and with friendly and flexible company culture. To seek convenience and affordability for their end-users, the employees are motivated by that goal as one for a common cause.
MyCLNQ Health has been featured in articles and has a strong social media presence. Some achievements include receiving an abundance of appreciative comments and testimonials from patients, getting onboard clinics & partners, and expanding their services to the wider areas of Singapore to provide digital healthcare services across the country.
In the effort to fight pandemic MyCLNQ Health has closely worked with Ministry of Health singapore to enable Telemedicine under Home Recovery Program for COVID patients to seek medical consult and medications while they recover from home. MyCLNQ also extend support to Health Promotion Board in their effort to make testing accessible to community easily and had setup a couple of quick-test centre Islandwide.
Despite their success, both Mr Anwar and Mr Gangesh are not resting on their laurels. They plan to branch out to neighbouring countries like Malaysia, Cambodia and Indonesia reaching out to more people in the domestic and foreign markets. Currently, they have also uncovered some issues for the future, and are looking forward to tackling the problems as more knowledge and research becomes available. In future, as Singapore’s population continue to age, healthcare digitalisation would find their usefulness to grow exponentially to reduce the stress of transport and physical waiting queues at clinics and healthcare facilities. Digital Healthcare Ecosystem would allow patients to remain in the comforts of their homes as medical personnel would experience an efficient and streamlined process to resolve each case.
