As we are entering into the endemic phase in the current world, it is time for us to understand the virtual COVID screening process and solutions offered by CLEA , the challenges it faces, and how it facilitates the borders reopen.
Here is the exclusive interview that shall clear the air of vagueness.
BusinessToday: Tell us more about CLEA and your products/services.
Dr. Chan: CLEADOC is a digital health platform with the aim to provide the best and seamless telemedicine service with the vision to democratise healthcare. CLEADOC had rolled out the flagship feature for 7 months where we provide an online ecosystem that allows users to perform virtual Covid screening at the comfort of their own place and get their verified by a Malaysia MOH accredited Doctor anytime, anywhere. We are the pioneer for Virtual Covid-19 Screenings (VCS) possibly around the world.
BusinessToday: You’ve entered into an exclusive partnership with eMedAsia Sdn Bhd, the subsidiary under Hong Seng Consolidated Bhd. Why did you enter this partnership and not go at this on your own?
Dr. Chan: eMedAsia is owned by HS Bio in partnership with Koperasi Persatuan Perubatan Malaysia (KOOP MMA), an investment vehicle for members of the Malaysian Medical Associations (MMA). MMA is the main representative body for registered medical practitioners in Malaysia. We are looking at providing a seamless consultation service to the public with the support and collaboration with MMA. With MMA having many years of experience in healthcare industry in Malaysia, we are sure that both of our companies can mutually benefit from this partnership.
BusinessToday: What are the tangible outcomes that can be expected from this partnership?
Dr. Chan: Scalability of our national screening capacity. It has always been a challenge to get more dedicated professionals to verify tests for our users. We are always looking to onboard more panel clinics to provide virtual screening to more users in Malaysia. Apart from that, we also wish to “democratise health” by progressively introducing more ground-breaking user-centric digital medicine features and products. With this current successful POC, we hope more Doctors will appreciate telemedicine after this, utilising us as a tool to complement their medical practice, providing better healthcare solutions for their patients.
BusinessToday: How has the adoption rate of the CLEADOC been since the reopening of the borders?
Dr. Chan: CLEADOC prioritises the touch of Doctors, adopting the “One Test, One Doctor” policy in all our Virtual Covid-19 Screening. The number of users using CLEADOC Virtual covid screening had been increasing steadily since the opening of the borders, and we are expecting more by May during holidays. This is largely due to the fact that CLEADOC is seamlessly designed to provide a convenient and easy way for travellers to screen themselves. With the turnaround time for each screening being kept at 3-4 hours currently, we have gained high and positive feedback from numerous users. In addition to that, travellers travelling into Malaysia can now also use virtual screening as their 24 hours on arrival test. This will allow them to be more flexible with their travel itinerary.
BusinessToday: What are some of the challenges that you have faced in pushing for the implementation of the virtual RTK screening in Malaysia?
Dr. Chan: Virtual screening was new back then, only certain countries in Europe were practicing it, the community was skeptical back then and we spent plenty of time and effort educating and sharing
to the public how technology actually can assist and work in this screening industry. Our customer service team works 16 hours a day, receiving up to 15,000 enquires a day, solving their questions one by one, ensuring everyone gets the best possible result. To perform a Virtual RTK screening, one will be required to have a smartphone and a stable internet connection.
We faced challenges in introducing this to rural areas, as they would be required to perform their Covid-19 screening via virtual consultation. However, we have seen these communities put in the effort to adopt these new technologies by borrowing smartphones and getting a stable Wi-Fi connection. Apart from that, we have been receiving advice and inputs from Malaysia MOH for our platform, and ways to improve and provide better solutions for the public. We communicate frequently and work together to ensure the public receives the best.
BusinessToday: Do you have any plans to offer a screening of other viruses besides COVID-19?
Dr. Chan: Covid screening is our flagship feature currently but it is not our only feature. Covid-19 will not last forever, but that is the disease affecting everyone’s life now, hence the focus of our team. CLEADOC’s Virtual Screening methodology is designed not just for Covid-19 but it’s optimised and designed in a way to cater to any possible zoonotic diseases in our near future. Our vision is always to revolutionize and democratize healthcare. We are actively preparing technologies and features, experts, and major institutions to be with us, which includes next-generation teleconsultation, other points of care tests, and many more.
BusinessToday: Do you have any plans to venture out of Malaysia?
Dr. Chan: As the inventor of this Virtual Covid-19 Screening culture, we always wanted to let other much-needed countries adopt CLEADOC’s methodology, as it’s designed by Medical Doctors themselves, ready for scaling, easy for the community to accept, and most importantly it’s ready. We screened 10K tests per day with zero records of cross-infection for both the users and doctors and also have our in-house Point of Care Testing (POCT) graphology image comparison Artificial Intelligence helping Doctors to further train and reduce the chances of fraudulence in Virtual based Professionally Supervised Screenings. We do have a list of to explore and we are already in touch with them for further collaborations.
