The Globe Group, the Philippine telecommunications and digital services company, has relaunched its telehealth service as a super app. KonsultaMD, which the group set up in 2015, now brings together what the company describes as the services of three medical apps — KonsultaMD, HealthNow and AIDE — into one product, covering video and chat consultations, an online pharmacy with same-day delivery, at-home laboratory tests, physical therapy, nursing care and a concierge tier for subscribers.

The company says users can reach more than 1,000 medical professionals across more than 40 specialisations, including mental health, and that the app is available on the Google and Apple stores. It presents the product against the country's shortage of care: it cites a university study that about six in ten people die each year without ever seeing a doctor, health department figures that roughly half of Filipinos have no primary care within thirty minutes, and a report that 27 provinces have fewer than half a hospital bed for every 1,000 residents.

Convenience, and who can reach it

The gap the app addresses is real. Its chief executive, Ernest Cu, says the Philippines has roughly one doctor for every 30,000 citizens and that widening access is the point. Consolidating scattered services into one app is a reasonable way to make them easier to find and to pay for, and the company says the new app is already beating the service it replaces on engagement and payment.

The harder question is reach. A super app works for people with a smartphone, a data plan and a means to pay, and the patients described in the company's own statistics — those in provinces with almost no beds — are often the least likely to have all three. Making care convenient for those already paying for it is not the same as making it available to those who are not. Whether KonsultaMD narrows the country's gap or mostly serves the customers Globe already has is the question the launch cannot answer.