Cigna Europe Insurance Company S.A.-N.V. – Singapore Branch hailed at the SBR International Business Awards

Its virtual platform Cigna Virtual Clinic provides patients with convenient digital access to consultations and more.

Cigna Europe Insurance Company S.A.-N.V. – Singapore Branch (Cigna Singapore) bagged Singapore Business Review’s International Business Awards for Health Products & Services for its telehealth, virtual platform initiative, Cigna Virtual Clinic (CVC).

Cigna Singapore understood the importance of telehealth and launched CVC in 2018. Since then, its advocacy for telehealth has grown to be more resolute. In times of crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic, Cigna Singapore has stepped up to support the healthcare system via CVC, with the ambition to deliver accessible, quality healthcare to patients, whilst simultaneously helping to alleviate the strain on the healthcare industry.

Latest available statistics by the World Health Organization show that over 45% of all member states globally report having less than 1 doctor per 1,000 people. In Singapore, with one of the most efficient public health systems in the world, this figure is only slightly higher at 1.4 doctors per 1,000 people. However, accident and emergency departments are struggling to keep waiting times down, with some patients waiting as much as five hours to be admitted, affecting patient experience.

The need to provide customers with better access to healthcare services is the reason why Cigna Singapore partnered with tech-led health and wellness company Doctor Anywhere to launch CVC.

The initiative is said to typically help reduce the time spent travelling and waiting by patients, providing them with convenient digital access to consultations. It also includes a delivery service that can provide door-to-door delivery of a patient’s medication, within three hours of consultation.

CVC also provides a convenient avenue for members with chronic diseases to follow up their conditions with a doctor regularly and get the medications refilled. The medications get to be delivered to the doorstep every 3 months. The convenience of reaching their doctors helped increase compliance to the treatment regime hence improved health outcomes.

Beyond virtual consultations, CVC also has a travel health feature that provides advice and medication prior to overseas trips as well as a health content hub that provides a wealth of health-related content, from tips to articles.

Just in Q1, CVC saw a huge increase in the number of its users, with a 186% registration surge, 76% membership growth and an 80% increase in tele-consult usage. In addition, Cigna Singapore’s data showed that 50% of all registered members have used the telehealth service at least once and 96% said that they will use the service again.

Cigna Singapore notes that the platform’s main benefit is to drive quality and convenient care to their members as virtual consultation eliminates both the travelling and physical waiting time at a clinic and reduces administrative hassle for Human Resource Managers with a seamless process to authenticate medical certificate information. Furthermore, CVC reduces healthcare providers' workload by allowing for the easy exchange of information between patients and doctors, much like a physical consultation.

To further advocate for telehealth as an important frontier in healthtech innovation, Cigna Singapore also launched the Cigna Care ConnectSM with the CVC as a standard offer. CVC also comes as a value-added service for Cigna Global Health Benefits®.

Watch the interview below to know more about their winning project: