17-Mar-17 The Malaysian Medical Device Agency has made public its plans to ratify the ASEAN Medical Device Directive, a framework intended to harmonize medical device regulations across 10 ASEAN member nations, in mid-2017. The agency has also announced its plans to undertake revisions of the country’s current medical device regulatory system in 2017. [image: Pacific Bridge Medical]

16-Mar-17 Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand plans to introduce robots into the dispensing process at its pharmacies to improve accuracy in preparing patients' prescriptions, increasing patient safety, and speeding up the hospital's pharmacy services. Currently the hospital handles more than 2 mn lists of medicine per year for patients and is targeting zero errors after the robots are introduced. [image: Bangkok Post]

16-Mar-17 Malaysia’s medical tourism industry grew by almost 25% in 2016, raking in an estimated MYR1.15 bn (USD260 mn) in hospital revenue, revealed the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council. CEO Sherene Azli said medical tourists were the biggest spenders among tourists in the country. “Our medical tourists mostly come from Indonesia, China, India, Australia, the United Kingdom and the Middle East,” she said. [image: Free Malaysia Today]

16-Mar-17 N Health, a unit under Thailand's BDMS hospital group, has launched a medical laboratory in Yangon, Myanmar, with local partners, to tap growing opportunities there. Since the civilian government started in 2011, health expenditures have risen over 10 times and this is just the beginning," said Dr Win Zaw Aung, managing director of Sea Lion Group. [image: Bangkok Post]

12-Mar-17 Private healthcare institutions in emerging Asian economies are cutting costs to offer high-quality care at 50-70% the price of large private hospitals. QualiMed in the Philippines has kept labor costs down by hiring young doctors who cannot afford a hospital space. Columbia Asia keeps operating costs low by focusing on high-demand fields. [image: Nikkei Asian Review]