MANILA, Philippines—The Congressional Commission on Science & Technology and Engineering (Comste) is looking at filing a bill to mandate a national telehealth or telemedicine system in the country.

Representative Joseph Emilio Aguinaldo Abaya who is also co-chair of Comste is set to file the National Telehealth Service Act of 2009 to push the use of information and communication technologies in the delivery of medical care.

The proposed measure aims to benefit patients and medical professionals who can now use Internet technology to tap medical expertise. This could be done through remote medical procedures via teleconferencing.

Abaya said in a statement that the bill needs the cooperation of government and public sectors “to pave way for new, better ways of delivering health services to the public,” especially to marginalized sectors.

The bill is based on the experience of UP Manila Telehealth Center, which is able to provide basic electronic health record registry via the Community Health Information System (CHITS), audiovisual education to local health workers and professionals through E-learning and video conferencing, and tele-referral and tele-mentoring to Doctors-to-the-Barrios (DTTB) using SMS technology through the Buddyworks Program.

In an interview, Dr. Alvin Marcelo, head of the UP Manila National Telehealth Center, said UP Manila is collaborating with Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab Research Group to implement Moca, an open source-based mobile application which can capture clinical information and images from the field and send remotely to a waiting physician.

Alison Perez, staff of medical informatics unit, UP College of Medicine said the UP-MIT collaboration started when Dr. Leo Celi from MIT, who is also an alumnus of UP College of Medicine, met UP Manila's group during the International Conference in Open Source in Health in Penang last November 2008.

Perez said MIT is eyeing the Philippines as test site for the Moca application.

Marcelo's group and MIT had an informal agreement to assess the deployment of Moca in the country. Possible sites of testing include Pasay City and Capiz, Perez said.