An app to show listings of health care providers and patients’ reviews has been released by a Cambodian tech startup, introducing a concept into the country that has proven popular abroad.
SokhaKrom will offer users a central location to find doctors, said Sok Sopheakmonkol, CEO of startup company Codingate, in a release event on Wednesday.
The platform will have details about medical firms, doctors and other medical professionals, medicines and pharmacies, according to the release, and users will also be able to add their own data into the system by rating medical professionals they visit.
A separate platform for medical providers, which allows them to manage their patients’ medical history and appointments, has also been created.
“Right now the two products are rather disconnected between the application and patient record system, but the final goal is to integrate them together,” Mr. Sopheakmonkol said.
Pharmacies and physicians who wish to be included in the free app will be charged at different rates.
Participatory health care platforms, such as SokhaKrom, have grown in popularity in other countries, but Codingate’s app is a first for Cambodia, said Phat Darith, chairman of World Foundation for Asia.
“The most crucial problem in the pharmacy industry is trust,” said Mr. Darith, who also acts as a medical adviser to Codingate. “If this application can be well-managed to let patients rate the doctors from whom they received treatment, it will improve the trust problem.”
However, similar platforms in other countries have been sued by medical practitioners who received poor reviews, so Mr. Darith said the platform should work on maintaining safeguards to distance its services from user-contributed reviews.
At its launch, SokhaKrom contains five pharmacies and dozens of doctors.
The startup is in talks with DKSH, Cambodia’s leading pharmaceutical distributor, to gain access to its network of doctors and pharmacies, said Ti’jay Goudjerkan, project manager for DKSH.
“As this [medical] business developed, you don’t have all providers listed on the internet, so this is important to have one platform with access to a list of all doctors,” he said.
Mr. Goudjerkan said the platform could also become a vital tool in identifying registered pharmacies, thereby avoiding pharmacies that are not registered and may be illegal.
The Health Ministry could not be reached for comment.
