KonsultaMD consolidates with HealthNow and AIDE to become a superapp

Three of the Philippines’ modern-day healthcare brands are uniting to create a single superapp that will deliver many more digital health solutions to more Filipinos!

KonsultaMD, HealthNow, and AIDE have formally sealed a consolidation deal to launch a unified superapp by the first quarter of 2023. The new KonsultaMD superapp will be packed with first-in-the-market features on end-to-end patient care. The superapp is aimed at further addressing consumers’ pain points in the delivery of digital solutions for their health challenges in the next normal.

The announcement was done on August 18, 2022 after the signing of an agreement among Globe Capital Venture Holdings, Inc. (917 Ventures)—the corporate venture builder of the Globe Group, Ayala Healthcare Holdings Inc. (AC Health)—the healthcare portfolio unit of the Ayala Group through its wholly-owned subsidiary Vigos Ventures, Inc., and Salud Interactive S.A. DE C.V. The deal consolidates Global Telehealth, Inc. (KonsultaMD), HealthNow, Inc. (HealthNow), and APPPPS Partners, Inc. (AIDE).

‘Globe innovation into another platform’

“The consolidation of KonsultaMD, HealthNow, and AIDE is a step towards achieving our shared vision of providing healthcare for all,” said Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu. “Through the superapp, Filipinos from across the country will be able to conveniently and immediately access quality healthcare and avail of related services such as diagnostics and medicine deliveries through their phones—an all-in-one digital solution to ensure a healthy nation.”

Cu noted that the partnership will further elevate the quality and scope of service across the three apps. “This is another evolution of Globe into another platform. We’ll try to fix another problem of our country—the problem of access to healthcare. We have succeeded in giving the Philippines a solution to financial inclusion through GCash. However, the problem of healthcare continues to be unsolved. And those are things that Globe likes to tackle. We need to be able to use our reach and our digital leanings, the network of Globe and GCash, to give Filipinos access to healthcare 24/7 across the country.”

“We have a shortage of around 100,000 doctors. And during the pandemic, the number of nurses has declined. Six out of 10 Filipinos pass away without seeing a doctor. These are sad statistics. There are many Filipinos living in places where not even one doctor could be found. With the power of telecommunications and the internet, we are going to solve this problem,” he added.

Integration into a superapp

The consolidation will integrate the apps into a single superapp that will bring KonsultaMD’s expertise in on-demand consultations; HealthNow’s strength in medicine delivery, storage of medical records, and implementation of vaccination and other health programs; and AIDE’s mastery of providing health services at home.

“As Mexico and the Philippines share similar health infrastructure and services, we have always believed this to be very beneficial for Filipinos, transforming their healthcare experience. We expect the Philippines to follow along the same path with KonsultaMD’s strong tele-consultation, HealthNow’s medicine delivery, and AIDE’s home care services with other 2 million users combined,” said Pedro Yrigoyen, Principal and Co-Founder of Mexico’s Salud Interactiva, the owner of AIDE.

KonsultaMD superapp will also usher in the integration of complementary online and offline services to facilitate the ultimate healthcare to users. It will offer on-demand and scheduled consultations, same-day medicine delivery, home-service diagnostics, doctor visits, concierge services, nursing care, fitness coaching, nutritional counseling, and more.

Thus, a patient will be able to book necessary on-site laboratory testing after a virtual consultation through the new KonsultaMD superapp. Prescriptions for medicines may also be fulfilled virtually through online orders.

Expanded reach

Through KonsultaMD superapp, the three brands could expand their reach—from the current base of over 2 million and a network of more than 1,000 healthcare providers across 45 specializations. It will also enable further growth as online consultations jumped at around 2,000% during the pandemic—the same level of increase in the volume of healthcare providers, medicine delivery, and private-public partnerships in the industry.

“AC Health’s end-to-end service delivery network coupled with the expanded digital reach of the new KonsultaMD puts us in a unique position to meld the online-offline experience for an omnichannel approach to health,” said AC Health President and CEO Paolo Borromeo.

“The new KonsultaMD provides an alternative point of access to AC Health’s customer base of over 3 million unique patients and physician-network of over 1,600 doctors. We are very excited about the potential of HealthNow, AIDE, and KonsultaMD, combined with AC Health’s physical brick-and-mortar assets, and how together, we can better empower our medical professionals, improve the quality of service for our patients, and ultimately transform healthcare.”

2 ecosystems unite

For KonsultaMD CEO Cholo Tagaysay, the consolidation is more of a unification between two ecosystems—AC Health’s ecosystem and Globe’s ecosystem of innovative digital solutions. Both are subsidiaries of the Ayala Corporation.

“Right now, the experience is—you do the teleconsult on the KonsultaMD app. Then you jump to the HealtNow app to fill your prescriptions. Then you make another jump to the AIDE app to do lab tests and home care. With the superapp, we want to make all of those happen in just one place, the KonsultaMD superapp. It will be a unification of both online and offline experience,” Tagaysay said.

Meanwhile, Cu hopes that in 3 years, KonsultaMD as a word will also evolve to become a verb, just like how GCash has become when users say, “I-GCash mo na lang.” He hopes by that time, people will say “I-KonsultaMD mo na lang, mawawala na sakit mo.”

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