Thomson Medical's digital arm in JV to launch telehealth app for women, children

Singapore

THOMSON X (TX), the digital arm of mainboard-listed Thomson Medical Group (TMG), is hopping on the telemedicine bandwagon through a joint venture (JV) with telehealth provider WhiteCoat.

The purpose of this move, however, is not to make a quick buck, but to capture a sustainable area of growth and provide better value for the group's consumer base, said TX's chief executive officer-designate Lim Wee Kiat in a recent interview with The Business Times.

TX was set up in December last year in part to "future-proof" TMG's business model and extend its reach through partnerships with startups and associations. The appointment of Lim, who is the son of billionaire Peter Lim, as CEO was announced on Dec 1, and takes effect on Jan 1, 2022.

The JV between TX and WhiteCoat will in 2022 launch a mobile application that offers "seamless and personalised" online-to-offline healthcare services to meet the health and wellness needs of women and children, both companies announced in a joint press statement on Wednesday (Dec 15).

"Women's health is actually underserved from a telemedicine point of view," said Lim, adding that many traditional telemedicine players only provide services from general practitioners.

The upcoming mobile app will therefore focus on digitally enhancing the delivery of the group's brand of obstetrics and gynaecology and paediatric healthcare services to its patients.

It will also support TMG's aim to cover "the entire value chain" from family planning, fertility, conception all the way to early childhood, said Lim.

Bryan Koh, WhiteCoat's founder and CEO, said: "This partnership cements our dedication and next steps to building a broader set of offerings across the spectrum of women's and children's health, founded on exceptional quality and accessible personalised care."

Apart from the acceleration of tech adoption amid the pandemic, issues surrounding the rising cost of raising a family, fertility challenges and mental wellness of mothers have spurred a growing interest towards the healthtech sector.

That said, not many investors have the luxury of directly tapping the resources and expertise of the industry, said Lim.

Very few startups have what Thomson X has going to market, he said.

"We have partnerships, our own hospitals, paediatricians, specialists and WhiteCoat as technology partner."

TMG operates one of the largest private maternity hospitals in Singapore and delivers a fifth of all babies in the Republic annually. The group also operates a satellite network of women's and children's clinics. All its satellite paediatric centres have been onboarded to WhiteCoat's current telemedicine platform.

The upcoming app will also play a role in boosting accessibility to the group's doctors and services and cater to a wider patient base. This is given that the online platform will not be limited by physical boundaries, making it possible to tap growing markets in the region and possibly converting these online users into offline patients.

"I think there is a very symbiotic relationship between the online and the offline platforms whereby the online can actually serve and spearhead the growth into different regions well," Lim said.

For instance, a strong online presence in a particular region may be a good indication to "seriously consider investing" in a greenfield or brownfield project there.

On managing healthcare costs while investing in new tech, Lim said that being able to tap TMG's resources has allowed TX to keep services affordable.

"If we were to deploy our doctors to another platform, we would definitely need to be able to take a healthy margin on it. But honestly speaking, we would only do it for a company we have no vested interest in and if the margins are good enough for us," he said.

Being owners of the platform, on the other hand, allows the team to keep prices friendly and provide better value to consumers by turning to the medical group's in-house doctors.

"We do have a good ecosystem. And we do want to use this ecosystem to provide more value and more affordability to the users of our platform," said Lim.

He also alluded to the possibilities of telemedicine addressing mental health needs, an area that is important for expectant mothers.

"My wife just went through pregnancy and it was an eye opener for me. I was able to witness it myself and not just come from a business perspective. It's not easy to be a mother. What I hope the app can do is to help alleviate a little bit of that hardship."

Shares of TMG ended Wednesday flat at S$0.083.