RxBox boosts countryside health services

Manila, Philippines - The government will spend some P30 million annually for a National Telehealth Service Program (NTSP) that aims to deliver health services through information and communications technology (ICT) in remote and underserved areas, officials said yesterday.

Science Secretary Mario Montejo said the program will include the provision of “RxBox” to over 1,600 poorest municipalities in the country in the next five years.

The RxBox, developed by researchers at the University of the Philippines-Manila, is a medical device that measures, stores and sends vital information of the patient – such as heart rate, electrocardiogram or ECG, blood pressure, pulse rate and blood oxygenation – to medical specialists.

The RxBox, which costs between P100,000 to P200,000, transmits the information via wired and wireless networks to a remote medical specialist who reads and interprets the data. This way the specialist can assist the doctors at the base station attending to the patient.

The medical device has a built-in camera to capture and send images of the patient being examined.

It is also equipped with hands-free video conference mode, which enables doctors from different locations to confer with each other.

Montejo said the program was part of the Aquino administration’s Universal Health Care program.

Dr. Jaime Montoya, executive director of the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD), said the medical equipment will be distributed to over 600 5th and 6th class municipalities nationwide as well as to 1, 000 towns with beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

Health Secretary Enrique Ona said the program allows health workers or the so-called “doctors to the barrios” in depressed areas to have access to specialists in order to improve the provision of health services.

Dr. Angela Wee of the National Telehealth Center of the University of the Philippines-Manila said there are 77 doctors to the barrios nationwide.

In 1993, the DOH launched the Doctors to the Barrios program, which was aimed at helping depressed and marginalized municipalities that are deprived of the services of a medical doctor.