According to the National Health & Morbidity Survey (NHMS), 20% of the population has fallen sick in the last two weeks. Among them, four out of ten did not consult a physician. They took medicine without advice from healthcare practitioners (HCPs) or obtained advice from other sources like the internet, TV, radio, and others. As such, DOC2US launched its ePharmacy service to ease public access to HCPs and collaborated with foodpanda’s pandago and Lalamove to provide ultra-convenient medication delivery within two hours in the Klang Valley.
Healthcare at Your Fingertips
Dr Raymond Choy, Chief Executive Officer of DOC2US said, “With the COVID-19 pandemic raging on, we saw the need to provide an easily accessible, single touchpoint professional healthcare to the general public. There are 24 million Facebook users in Malaysia, by adapting our backend system with Facebook Messenger, we could provide professional online consultation for minor acute illnesses such as common cold, cough, upper respiratory tract infections, ear infections, asthma, and skin rashes, issue e-prescriptions, and deliver the needed medication door to door, all done literally at the users’ fingertips without leaving their homes especially when they are unwell.”
DOC2US’s ePharmacy service will connect users to a doctor from DOC2US for a virtual consultation, where if needed, an e-prescription will be given and filled by Malaysia’s largest prescription pharmacy chain Alpro Pharmacy. The medication will then be delivered within 2 hours through their designated delivery partners – pandago and Lalamove in the Klang Valley.
Sayantan Das, Managing Director of foodpanda Malaysia said, “We are very pleased to be partnering with DOC2US to serve more Malaysians. As we face a challenging time, we wanted to ensure consumers are still able to have access to their medication via a safe and reliable channel. We hope that with this service, we at foodpanda can play a small role in encouraging Malaysians to stay home and stay safe.”
Jane Teh, Managing Director of Lalamove Malaysia said, “True to their credo of ‘Your Trusted Online Doctor’, DOC2US brings the experience of face-to-face consultation with doctors to the digital realm with personalised chats on DOC2US’ platform. In a period where stay-at-home is a mandate to minimise the risk of Covid-19 infection, DOC2US offers a safe channel to dispense online consultation, electronic prescription and medication delivery. With 20,000 active on- demand delivery partners, Lalamove is proud to be a part of DOC2US’ mission to connect Malaysians with doctors anytime, anywhere.”
Lending a Helping Hand
With the nation-wide total lockdown and probable on-going Movement Control Order that forbids crossing of districts and inter-state travels, DOC2US believes that their ePharmacy could also help the more than half of the over 2.4 million Malaysians over the age of 65 who require long term medication for ailments like cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes as they tried to avoid visiting high risk places such as hospitals, clinics and pharmacies or previously relied on their children and/or grand-children to purchase medicine on their behalf.
“Straying from medication for such conditions can put them at an even higher risk of morbidity from their existing condition on top of the COVID-19 risk. Hence, they can now use the ePharmacy service with text chat, voice note and even call function on Facebook Messenger to help them ensure their prescriptions are filled and safely delivered while they stay safe at home,” Dr Choy added.
Currently, there are more than 6,300 patients using DOC2US’ ePharmacy service which can be accessed via:
1. https://www.facebook.com/doc2usePharmacy or
2. DOC2US hotline 019 702 1932 or
3. DOC2US.com and look for ePharmacy on the menu bar
