SINGAPORE - Four new medical services providers, including two that provide on-demand house calls, have joined the Ministry of Health's (MOH) regulatory sandbox for telemedicine, allowing them to offer services to patients in Singapore while staying within specified patient safety and welfare parameters.

Launched in April with two telemedicine providers, the sandbox under the MOH's new Licensing Experimentation and Adaptation Programme (Leap) will exist until telemedicine services are officially licensed under the Healthcare Services Act. On Sept 7, four other providers came onboard: telemedicine providers MyDoc and Doctor Anywhere, mobile medicine provider Speedoc, which provides on-demand house calls, and MaNaDr, which provides both telemedicine and mobile medicine services.

Said Speedoc chief executive officer Shravan Verma in a media statement on Tuesday (Sept 11): "As one of the first on-demand mobile medicine providers in Singapore, joining the MOH regulatory sandbox is a huge step forward for us."

The 24/7 mobile application allows users to request a house call from a doctor to a location of their choice, either via the app or by calling a patient support line.

During a patient call, users are matched with a Speedoc doctor - a registered medical practitioner - and can communicate via in-app messaging or over the phone. When a house call is made, the visiting doctor will diagnose a patient's condition and prescribe medication on the spot, or provide a prescription for pickup at a pharmacy of choice.

Doctor Anywhere provides video consultation with medical doctors and healthcare professionals through a mobile app. Said founder Lim Wai Mun: "Doctor Anywhere's participation in the MOH Regulatory sandbox indicates that MOH has reviewed our model and found it consistent with the regulatory ethos of MOH, which we hope gives care-seekers the assurance and confidence in our service standards and medical protocol."