Ping An Good Doctor to expand medical services platform in Southeast Asia this year
The company will give users in the region access to artificial intelligence-assisted online medical consultations, medicine delivery and appointment bookings
Ping An Good Doctor, China’s biggest online health care platform, aims to expand its services in Southeast Asia later this year to cater the growing demand from the region and mainlanders travelling for medical tourism.
The company, officially known as Ping An Healthcare and Technology, last Thursday announced the formation of a 70:30 venture with Southeast Asian ride-hailing platform Grab, which will give users in the region access to artificial intelligence-assisted online medical consultations, medicine delivery and appointment bookings.
“After signing the joint venture agreement, we now need to form the management team,” said Wang Tao, chairman of Ping An Good Doctor. “We hope to see the services in at least one country this year. It is possible Thailand will be the first one.”
He said Thailand is good because of the availability of low-cost, high-quality services provided by private medical centres.
Last week , a spokeswoman for Grab said that the company is “looking at Indonesia closely”.
It will also keep an eye on the growing medical tourism market as an increasing number of mainland Chinese looking for international medical services. Wang said they would also cooperate with hospitals in the region to provide online and offline medical services to Chinese users.
“Medical institutions in Thailand and Indonesia provide good services, and costs are low. And they have a large number of young mobile user population,” he said.
