[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s medical industry has made inroads into Asian and Latin American markets with their telemedicine services, hoping to create new revenue flows.

Telemedicine allows doctors to offer quality health care to those in hard-to-reach areas and for the elderly by connecting patients to doctors using the internet.

In April 2015, Gachon University Gil Hospital signed a memorandum of understanding with Peru’s Cayetano Heredia Hospital to cooperate on telemedicine services in the Latin American country.

Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital and a hospital in Shanghai agreed in September last year to jointly develop a telemedicine service. Two months later, Yonsei University of Health System and University of the Philippines System agreed on a similar service.

Recently, officials at Korea University Anam Hospital visited Colombia, Bolivia and Paraguay, during which they discussed plans to provide telemedicine services in the Latin American nations.

South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare is also preparing for a package of measures to support the moves by hospitals to provide telemedicine services in overseas markets. 

In line with the moves by the government and hospitals, medical equipment firms are stepping up their efforts to sell telemedicine-related devices in overseas markets.

BIT Computer, which sells hospital, clinic and pharmacy solutions, recently won an order worth 2 billion won (US$1.79 million) to build a telemedicine system at a state-run hospital in Mongolia. Currently, BIT Computer supplies telemedicine solutions to 11 nations, including Thailand, Iraq and Cambodia.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)