mySihatPal | AstraZeneca Advances Equitable Healthcare and Digitalisation with New Health Portal

AstraZeneca, a science-led global biopharmaceutical company, together with several renowned societies had unveiled a new digital health portal named ‘mySihatPal’ for the public’s access to a wide range of health services through their digital devices.

The societies in the alliance are Asthma Malaysia (AM), Bayi Pramatang Malaysia (BPM), Breast Cancer Welfare Association Malaysia (BCWA), Malaysian Congenital Heart Foundation (YJKM), Malaysian Endocrine & Metabolic Society (MEMS), Malaysian Family Medicine Specialists’ Association (FMSA), Persatuan SLE Malaysia (PSLEM), The Malaysian Society of Gastroenterology & Hepatology (MSGH) and the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA).

A first-of-its-kind, the mySihatPal is an innovative, yet comprehensive health portal providing the public with direct access to a broad gamut of services - from disease information, wellness content, connection to allied healthproviders, private hospitals, primary care clinics, government clinics to virtual consultation with healthcare professionals and pharmacists for expert insights - ensuring that everyone has a fair opportunity to attain their highest level of health.

With a growing demand for advancement in healthcare, there is a need to bridge the gap between patients and healthcare professionals through digitalisation. One of the biggest barriers to healthcare accessibility has been patient proximity to physical locations, making it necessary to create a one-stop portal to connect people to a healthcare professional for relevant advice.

The mySihatPal portal aptly fulfills this demand by creating a gateway for the public to reach out to multiple communities encompassing medical professionals, societies and healthcare facilities within the healthcare network. Additionally, this platform integrates referral suggestions by connecting the public with allied healthcare providers for consultation.

Commenting on the partnership, Vinod Narayanan, Country President of AstraZeneca said, “At AstraZeneca, our aim is to partner with like-minded industry players to co-create new approaches, solutions and technologies to advance equitable healthcare for Malaysians and at the same time, upscale digitalisation. Across the world, digitalisation in healthcare is rapidly transforming the way healthcare is delivered, creating a new paradigm shift in the patient journey and eventually, better health outcomes.”

“As a global biopharmaceutical company, we want to facilitate this transformation by providing healthcare solutions beyond the pill to support patient needs, while enabling digital health innovation to flourish. By creating a universal digital health channel like mySihatPal for the public to leverage, we can enhance the public’s knowledge on common and rare diseases by connecting them to established resources and broadening their outreach to healthcare professionals, enabling improved patient outcomes and experience,” explained Vinod.

An important appeal of mySihatPal is that it enhances patients' health literacy, providing them with simplified disease-related information. Through this portal, the public can now enjoy greater autonomy over their own health concerns as the user interface is designed to present information that is comprehendible and easy to navigate.

Equally important, the public can also conduct preliminary self-diagnosis on their conditions using self-assessment evaluation tools, before connecting to relevant healthcare professionals through an online directory to receive the righttreatment approach.

Speaking about the collaboration, the societies partner representative -Dr. Haji Helmy Haja Mydin, Co-Founder of Asthma Malaysia stated, “Asthma Malaysia supports the development of a comprehensive digital health portal as it provides a credible avenue for the public to gain access to healthcare information and link up directly with a panel of healthcare experts. More crucially, by promoting rapid access to medicines and consultations, it significantly reduces the gap between the onset of symptoms and subsequent intervention. Ultimately, the breadth and depth of mySihatPalwill benefit the society-at-large through an increased healthcare awareness.”

Aside from improving access to healthcare solutions, mySihatPal will soon feature a new user interface focusing on well-being with videos and authored articles by medical professionals on various health topics.

With the many benefits of this digital health portal for the public, AstraZeneca looks to continue broadening the existing pool of health partners on mySihatPal by inviting other partners with the same goal to join the coalition and help advance equitable healthcare in the country, while reducing the gaps in access to healthcare. #mySihatPal