In recent years, Thailand has been attracting increasing attention as a destination for medical tourism, the practice of visiting a country with a standard of medical care superior to that of one's own country to receive medical services. Thailand has earned this position due to the many talented medical professionals and advanced facilities that call the country home. 

In July of this year, Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, adopted an NEC Group testing service that can predict future diseases based on just a small sample of blood. "We want to realize a society in which everyone can live life to the fullest" - this is the dream behind the project and an important motivation for the team that is leading it.

Future disease risks

Thailand is making a national effort to promote medical tourism, and is now a leading country in the industry, with more than 2 million international travelers visiting Thailand every year for medical treatment and examinations.

Bumrungrad International Hospital rises in the heart of Bangkok. It is a medical institution that provides state-of-the-art medical care and is popular for medical tourism, particularly for travelers from Europe and the Middle East. One of its strengths is its focus on personalized medicine tailored to individual health conditions and lifestyles. This is why the NEC Group's disease prediction testing service, the "FonesVisuas Test," was selected for use.

What kind of service is the FonesVisuas Test?
Conventionally, genetic testing has been the most common means of determining a person's risk of contracting future diseases. By examining one's genes, one can estimate one's innate risk of contracting diseases. On the other hand, daily lifestyle habits, such as eating habits, greatly affect health. Genetic testing cannot measure the risks caused by lifestyle habits and when someone is likely to contract a disease.

The FonesVisuas Test helps to solve this problem. By examining the 7,000 different proteins in a person's blood, it can predict not only their current physical condition, but also their likelihood of developing dementia, myocardial infarction/stroke, lung cancer, and chronic kidney failure within a few years. This one-of-a-kind testing service was launched in Japan in 2020 and has provided disease risk assessments to more than 4,000 people at more than 80 medical institutions.

"By predicting future disease risks with a high degree of accuracy, we can take preemptive action at an early stage, when a person is neither very sick nor completely healthy," says Kazuma Ohkura of NEC's Lifestyle Support Department, who led the project. This service has the potential to improve people's quality of life (QOL) by enabling them to live longer and more healthy," says Ohkura.

Building relationships and building trust

International business for the FonesVisuas Test began in 2023. The catalyst for this was an inquiry the previous year from a doctor at Bumrungrad International Hospital. He approached NEC saying, "I read your paper on the FornesVisuas Test. I would like to talk to you." An appointment was made immediately and a series of discussions began. However, the doctor in charge suddenly resigned from the hospital, and discussions had to be restarted from scratch.

When Dr. Polakit Teekakirikul, the new project director at Bumrungrad, learned about the service, he was positive that he wanted to adopt it immediately. He and the other lab members had been briefed on the project, and the system seemed to be ready for operations. However, "the hard part started from here," recalls Hidemi Sato of NEC's Lifestyle Support Department, who served as the point of contact with the hospital's sales department. "When we approached other doctors and sales representatives of the hospital's testing service, their response was, 'What's that?'"

In order for the project to succeed, it would be necessary to connect numerous parties, get everyone to fully understand the service's benefits, and then ensure that everyone works together effectively as one team. It was a seven-hour flight and one-hour drive each way from Japan to Bangkok. Sato traveled to the hospital, gathered as many stakeholders as possible in a conference room, and provided them with detailed explanations on how to operate and understand the system.

Sato and her team continued to promote the value of the service, and as a result of repeated communication, the reputation of the groundbreaking service gradually spread among hospital staff. As a result, a contract was signed, and the FonesVisuas Test was adopted for the first time by a hospital outside of Japan.

Dr. Teekakirikul, shared his thoughts on the potential of the system: "We felt that genetic testing services alone were not sufficient for truly personalized medicine. With the addition of the FoneVisuas Test, we expect to be able to gain a more detailed understanding of each individual's physical condition."

A foothold for global expansion

The service has been offered at Bumrungrad International Hospital since the summer of 2024. "The medical team really appreciates the depth of information it provides, and we can present treatment plans with confidence," said Dr. Teekakirikul. "It is an ideal tool that fits our hospital's policy of strengthening personalized medicine." The hospital plans to expand the number of patients receiving the service through promotions on its social networking channels and introductions to medical tourists.

Ohkura said that the progress in Thailand is "very significant in that we are able to prove that there is a need for the FonesVisuas Test internationally. Looking to the future, he says, "Being adopted by a top-class hospital in Thailand, a country with advanced medical services, will have a ripple effect. Dr. Teekakirikul provided an encouraging outlook, saying, "The FonesVisuas Test will be an indispensable tool for medical professionals, and I look forward to NEC's innovative services and support in the future."

"We want to provide our products to a wide range of medical institutions throughout the world, helping to ensure that people everywhere can enjoy long, healthy lives." This is the desire of Ohkura, Sato, and the entire team, and also matches well with the NEC Group's Purpose: "To create the social values of safety, security, fairness and efficiency that promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the chance to reach their full potential." With the growing adoption of the FonesVisuas Test, everyone has taken a big step towards realizing this dream.

Related Links

NEC Stories Top