New clinic brings digital health to Seychelles |29 May 2019

Minister Adam accompanied by Dr Samaraweera cutting the ribbon to inaugurate the new clinic

You heard it right! You want to know your health status? By a click on your phone you can now know all details related to your health if you are following your treatment at the new primary health care clinic ‘Future Care’ located at Le Chantier (Ex-Dr Albert clinic).

Future Care was officially inaugurated yesterday by the Minister for Health Jean- Paul Adam and the director of the new clinic Dr Jude Samaraweera in the presence of the high commissioner of Sri Lanka to Seychelles, Tikiri Gunathilake, the Minister for Finance, Trade, Investment & Economic Planning, Maurice Loustau-Lalanne, Roman Catholic Bishop Denis Wiehe and other members from the health sector

Future Care is a primary healthcare clinic fully owned and managed by Future Holdings (Pty) Limited and the investment made in this clinic is between US $800,000 and US $1 million. Future Holdings won a bid that the Catholic church published and now has a long-term lease.

“Our main goal is to provide a primary healthcare service with a high standard of quality by taking advantage of the technology for affordable cost. We take pride to be the pioneer in digital health in Seychelles by introducing  Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system supported by Future Care mobile Application. This will enable total paperless medical record system,” said Dr Samaraweera in his opening speech.

“We will be having, twice a week, a specialised paediatric clinic and once a week gynaecology clinic. We will also be having a panel of visiting specialist consultants namely cardiologist, rheumatologist, pulmonologist, allergist and general surgeon who will visit every three months continually. In June we will be having a consultant rheumatologist, a consultant pulmonologist and a consultant allergist. In August we will have a cardiologist and general surgeon,” added the director of the clinic.

Another important service of this clinic is to bring the international laboratory standards to Seychelles. “Future Care is having a technical collaboration with Hemas Hospital Laboratory services in Sri Lanka. Hemas Hospital Laboratory Services will be maintaining Randox International Quality Assessment Scheme (RIQAS) and External Quality Assessment Scheme Bio-Rad (EQAS) also the laboratory is certified with Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) & American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC). We will be having laboratory test menu of 3000 tests. The laboratory provides a wide range of services such as Biochemistry, Haematology, Serology, Clinical Pathology, Microbiology and Histopathology. The laboratory will be using state of the art laboratory information system (LIS) which will enable error less process from sample collection to report delivery.

“Also all the laboratory reports will be available through patient personal mobile phone through Future Care Mobil App,” explained Dr Rohan Sugathadesa, director of the Hemas Hospitals Laboratory chain.

Minister Adam added that “before, it was the clinic of Dr Albert and we are happy that after his retirement, this facility is still a clinic with a new investor and new facilities. We are encouraging such facilities and with their new system of recording patient’s details, it will complement our upcoming system in the health sector where soon we will also start implementing the digital record system. Private sector still has space to continue to grow and complement the work the ministry is doing. We are giving the public the choice to take care of their responsibility”.

Talking about the introduction of the Electronic Medical Report, the minister added that they just completed the tender process. “We can now start with the project and the patients no matter what clinic he or she goes to, the clinic will have access to his/her records. The results will be able to be transmitted by email and this will definitely reduce the risk of losing records. It will help in better assisting the patients when it comes to giving an appointment or even having a medical history. Our system will not be as personalised as the system offered by the clinic but slowly we will be able to offer all features.”

With every new clinic that is opened, the hope is that they work in collaboration with the Ministry of Health to alleviate the work load of the health sector.

The minister added that “we already have a working relationship with this company and already some of the tests we do here are sent to their hospital in Sri Lanka for analysis. The facilities here are similar to the hospital’s, but it gives options to the public where they want to go. It is a fact that more and more people are becoming more conscious about their health and they want to know their status. They want to have their blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol test regularly and the advantage of having an electronic record is that they are able to consult their reports and bring a change in their lifestyle. This is how we are collaborating and we are also working with all private clinics to offer more HIV tests across the island.

Equipped with three consultation rooms, one dressing room, a laboratory and an electrocardiogram (ECG) room, the clinic will be open from 7am to 7pm daily. The consultation fee is set at R200 and the blood test will start as from R45 per test depending which test the patient wants.