Siriraj Hospital has introduced a "new normal" for blood testing patients who can now book drive-through appointments via the hospital's "Siriraj Connect" application.
Having a blood test in the comfort of their car is the hospital's attempt to reduce its daily in-building numbers, which usually sees over 10,000 out-patients per day.
Opening for the first day on Tuesday, patients with appointments avoided waiting in long queues inside the crowded building to have their blood test while sat in their own cars.
Prasit Watanapa, dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, said the hospital is aware that social distancing is still necessary during the current Covid-19 outbreak and that there is a need to develop a new normal for making sure all patients can still access medical treatment even as public concerns around social distancing rise.
Dr Prasit said patients living with chronic diseases are the most impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak and, as a result, they previously were unable to visit the hospital.
To counter this, Siriraj developed a system of "telemedicine" to enable continued communication between doctors and their patients during the outbreak.
"Our drive-through blood test is our latest service to deal with the challenge of social distancing in the hospital.
"The service is available for half-days in the morning, with a limit of 600 appointments per day. It will help reduce the number of people in the blood test room inside the building," he said.
According to the hospital's guidelines, any patient who needs to use the drive-through service must download the Siriraj Connect application to make an appointment. Payments can be made upon application.