PH health info management-BPO roadshow offers topnotch services

Panelists left to right: Trade Representative Jose Ma S. Dinsay; Cristina Coronel, President, HIMAP; Consul General Henry S. Bensurto Jr.; Undersecretary Nora K. Terrado; Myla Rose Reyes, VP for Healthcare Operations, SPi Global; Vincent Remo, AVP-Business Development, Advanced World Solutions Inc; John Chess, Managing Director, KMC Solutions USA. PTIC SILICON VALLEY/Rosalie Y. Say

SAN FRANCISCO – Notwithstanding the Trump administration’s “Hire American” slogan, a Philippine roadshow promoting investments and partnership in healthcare information management and business processing recently toured the four key markets of New York, Florida, Texas and California.

The delegation led by Undersecretary of Industry Promotion Nora Terrado, Department of Trade and Industry was joined by Christina Coronel, president of Healthcare Information Management Association of the Philippines (HIMAP); delegates from the Philippine Board of Investments (BOI), members of HIMAP and business process management industry.

Clearly, the industry has grown in leaps and bounds in terms of competitive advantages, capabilities and strengths since its fledgling start a dozen or so years ago. To begin with, IT resources abound in the Philippines, its people speak an English that is closest to American speech, and there is a glut of nursing graduates due to the slowdown in global demand.

With familiarity with medical and pharmacological terminologies and situations, Filipino health professionals are a natural fit in the healthcare information industry. The industry pays well, even if wages are much lower than professional counterparts in the United States; wages are substantially higher than for regular non-IT employees. The high education level of the work force and competitive rates are major draw to investors and clients alike.

From left to right: Vincent Remo (Advanced World Systems); Myla Rose Reyes (SPi Global); Jeannette Carillo (ADEC); Elisa Davis (McKesson Corp.). PTIC SILICON VALLEY

John Chess, managing director of KMC Solutions USA, and an early industry entrepreneur having created the Philippine Clinical Healthcare Services Delivery Model in 2003, spoke highly of his company’s evolution in the Philippines, and the satisfied healthcare enterprises it serves in the United States and elsewhere.

Chess’ company has provided expert service to health providers, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals and life sciences. Phil Taylor, managing director of KMC Solutions spoke on behalf of Salis Dani, vice president, Location Optimization of Everest Group. Taylor has 20 years of experience in outsourcing and offshoring, leading deals, implementations and operations as a vendor, client and acquirer. He convincingly described the Philippines a leading delivery location for the healthcare business process services.

New and expanded developments in Health Information Management Systems (HIMS) include Transactional Business Processes in the healthcare vertical (increasing leverage for industry-centric and complex voice/non-voice services), Multilingual Skills to serve Asian and Middle-Eastern countries (managed by returning OFWs). A 24-hour 7 days a week online chat technology provides a live, one on one online forum for individuals to discuss health and wellbeing issues with a registered nurse.

Other services offered by HIMS association members are Pharmacy Benefit Management, Benefit Design Management, Clinical Management, Retail Pharmacy Network Management, Utilization Review and Benefit Claims Testing. In Clinical Research, services offered are Case Management, Data Management, Regulatory Services, Medical Writing, Clinical Trial Monitoring, Pharmacovigilance, Quality and Compliance and Medical Monitoring.

With the slew of healthcare, medical and pharmaceutical information management services in the Philippines being utilized by U.S. entities and insurance companies, would Medicare services for retiring Filipino Americans in the Philippines be far away? Philippine Consul General Henry S. Bensurto, Jr. said, “Hopefully, it will come to fruition in the not so distant future.”

Undersecretary Terrado delivering her presentation. PTIC SILICON VALLEY

The Philippine Healthcare IT-BPM Industry had a total revenue of $2.4 billion in 2016 and employed 118,245. Since 2011there has been an increase of 54% in revenue and 36% in employment. The sector aims to increase its revenue to US$5 billion by 2020.

Along with Usec Nora K. Terrado and Dir. Angelica M. Cayas of DTI and BOI, members of the Healthcare Information Management Association of the Philippines (HIMAP) that joined the roadshow were HIMAP President Ma. Cristina Coronel and Jemain Diaz De Rivera, executive director.

From Advanced World Solutions Inc., Vincent Remeo, and AVP Business Dev. ADEC was represented by Jeannet Carillo, executive director; Dynaquest-Gail Macapagal, Country Manager; Edulink had Amanda Reyes and Raymond Ang; KMC Solutions USA had John Chess and Phil Traylor, Managing Directors; Personiv– David Lesnik, CEO and Paolo Cheung ,VP Operations; Pointwest Technologies-Lucy Flores and JL Botor, manager for Healthcare BPM Practice; Prople Inc. Malu Borja, President; SPi Global– Myla Rose Reyes, VP for Healthcare Operations, and Seven Seven Softwares, Inc– John Paul Zilvetiz and Stephen Vito.

To complement the IT-HIM industry players, Emmanuel Pineda, chairman and administrator, and Francis Initorio, Corporate Affairs Development from the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan offered one-stop-shop government document processing to investors, as well as a highly skilled manpower pool and large manufacturing facilities for varied industries.

The successful roadshow was facilitated by the Philippine Trade and Investment Centers in Washington, DC, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The tour’s last leg was in San Francisco after stops in Manhattan, New York; Orlando, Florida; and Houston, Texas.