Metro Pacific Health eyes virtual healthcare services in postpandemic rebrand

Manuel V. Pangilinan-led conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. is rolling out a slew of virtual healthcare services as it revealed a major corporate rebranding in the postpandemic era.

Pangilinan built Metro Pacific’s healthcare group from a single hospital in 2007 into the country’s biggest private operator, with 19 hospitals and over 3,800 beds.

On Wednesday, the healthcare arm previously, known as Metro Pacific Hospitals, was rebranded for the first time in 15 years to Metro Pacific Health.

“More than just a new look and a new logo, our brand refresh offers a new promise,” Pangilinan said during the unveiling of the healthcare group’s new name and logo.

He said new services would include “remote patient monitoring, electronic health record systems, hospital-at-home programs, and all these other exciting opportunities that will revolutionize patient care in the country.”

“In terms of hospital services, we will widen our delivery channels, capture new growth opportunities, and invest in new equipment to meet our patients’ growing needs,” he added.

Furthermore, Pangilinan outlined a “renewed commitment” to deliver sustainable services and to “bring down the cost of healthcare in the Philippines so more Filipinos can afford it.”

Dr. Harish Pillai, CEO of Metro Pacific Health, said the new virtual care platforms would entail the upgrading of hospital information systems.

He said the goal was to create an integrated platform, allowing them to “digitally search for and schedule appointments, virtually triage symptoms, navigate to the right site of care, and access electronic medical records across the entire network.”

The longtime president of the hospital group, Augusto Palisoc Jr., said they would ramp up partnerships with government and private sector players to “deliver compassionate, holistic, high-quality patient-centric care to more Filipinos.”

Palisoc said he was an early skeptic of the segment. He revealed he once advised Pangilinan against the 2007 investment in Makati Medical Center, their first hospital given, due to their lack of expertise.

“Against my advice, he accepted the directorship, became chairman of the board, invested P750 million in Makati Med, and began the quest to build the first nationwide chain of hospitals in the Philippines,” Palisoc recalled.

“To silence the opposition, he appointed me, his most vocal critic, to head our hospital group. And the rest, as they say, is history,” he said.

Metro Pacific Health serves about four million patients per year. It also operates outpatient clinics, six cancer care centers, two allied health collages, a centralized laboratory and pharmacies.

Apart from Makati Medical Center, its hospitals include Asian Hospital and Medical Centre, Cardinal Santos Medical Center, Manila Doctors Hospital, Calamba Medical Center, and Davao Doctors Hospital.