How Minmed Group uses technology to improve patients’ experience

Founded in 2015, Minmed Group was conceived with the modern patient’s needs in mind.

With the progress of technology, Minmed continues to enhance digital capabilities to its service suite as part of healthcare solutioning.

One of the trends gaining traction in recent years is teleconsultations. Apart from Minmed’s chain of close to 10 GP clinics, Founder and CEO, Dr Eric Chiam, also made it a point that his patients would be able to see a doctor from anywhere and receive their medications on the same day.

It’s easy to see why such a forward-thinking strategy has paid off. Given the backdrop of COVID-19, patients ought not be travelling to a clinic simply to get an MC or medication if they are infectious. However, Dr Eric Chiam is keenly aware of the difficulty of the task at hand, saying that “the challenge therefore is really to make available a seamless online and offline experience for the consumer.”

With MinmedConnect, the group’s personalised healthcare app, patients can retrieve their medical, medication and payment history in the palm of their hands 24/7 – on their mobile devices.

Via teleconsultations with a Singapore-registered doctor, patients themselves no longer need to make the arduous trip down to a clinic when they are already feeling unwell. For clinics such as Minmed, teleconsultations enable the efficient use of a doctor’s time to see their patients.

The outcome is a win-win-win for patients, the practice and the general population.

New normal, new challenges, new opportunities

As overused as the term “new normal” may be in post-COVID-19, the reality is that the pandemic has brought new opportunities.

To enhance patients’ experience with Minmed, Dr Chiam invested in expanding its virtual ecosystem by building a range of wellness services as part of its current MinmedConnect ecosystem. This ensured that the group continues to offer a compelling digital-first solution that augments face-to-face healthcare to conduct video consultations with our patients through MinmedConnect.

Beyond just its virtual consultations, Minmed’s patients now have access to home-based screening packages, as well as livestream workout and cooking and healthy living sessions. This effectively turns every mobile phone into a doctor, personal trainer, nutritionist, or dietician when required.

Once a customer books a home-based screening or their annual health check-up, a mobile medical team will visit their home to collect biometric parameters and samples for urine and blood analysis. The results will be ready within one working day and stored on their MinmedConnect account.

Traversing the wellness value chain, those in the Minmed ecosystem are also able to livestream a class – similar to how they would book and join a class at a gym. Patients can tune in to live classes to cook up a storm with healthy recipes from Minmed’s nutritionists or get healthy living tips from a dietician. They can do all this for free via their MinmedConnect accounts.

Value-adding to Singapore’s fight against COVID-19

Apart from individuals, Minmed’s corporate business has seen it screen over 1 million participants from more than 500 companies. Its refreshed individual business also translated well in establishing virtual workplace programmes covering active living, healthy eating and mental wellness, for companies to support the physical health and mental health of their workforce.

Underpinned by this deep experience in running corporate screening programmes over two decades, Minmed has been able to do its part in Singapore’s national vaccination programme, by quickly setting up and running four vaccination centres.

Since the early innings of Singapore’s vaccination drive, Minmed leveraged on its corporate connections to play its part in encouraging Singaporeans to get vaccinated. It launched an online platform – iamvaccinated.sg – in June 2021 for local businesses to offer special discounts and perks to those who were vaccinated.

Today, it continues to value-add to Singapore’s vaccination drive by putting in place personalised touches. One of this is providing free teleconsultations for anyone with post-vaccination symptoms on its MinmedConnect app.

OCBC SME supports medipreneurs in the #NewNormal

At OCBC, we are honoured and excited to be riding on this wave of growth in the healthcare segment with Minmed and Dr Chiam, who believes in “having a team who believes in you, who is aligned with the vision, and can run the distance with you”.

Just like Minmed Group, healthcare providers in Singapore may be looking at various models to fit into the #NewNormal. Similarly, existing and aspiring medipreneurs may also be looking at gaps in the solutions currently on offer in Singapore.

Some of the opportunities at hand may require investments – which is where OCBC SME’s suite of solutions can come in handy. With this in mind, OCBC SME has custom-built our Healthcare Practice Financing solution for both new and established medipreneurs.

Even without any business track record or financials required, you can tap on our upfront Medi Starter loan for up to $300,000 to set up your clinical practice for the first time. This funding can be used to cover renovation works, general working capital and even practice acquisition. More established medipreneurs can qualify for higher funding of up to $600,000 with our Medi Expansion loan.

Along with funding, medipreneurs can also lean on our dedicated team of healthcare specialists to navigate the challenges and address your unique requirements in setting up, day-to-day operations and financing options.

Start, run and grow your clinic with ease. Talk to an OCBC Healthcare Specialist today.