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SINGAPORE not only has a positive health-care experience to share with the region but is also in a strong position to reach out to neighbours with updated solutions in a fast-growth sector. The $17 million National University of Singapore Initiative to Improve Health in Asia (Niha) that Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan announced at a dialogue with Asean and East Asian counterparts last week is a modest but purposeful effort in research, education and capacity-building. The programme will fund policy studies, sponsor leadership training here for mid-career executives, conduct policy discussions and foster partnerships among policymakers.
Cooperation in health-care management should lead to closer coordination and the beginnings of integration within and beyond Asean, as has been shown in other fields. These nations face a common challenge: How to improve quality and widen access without raising costs too much. The answer, in part, lies in infocomm technology. As Mr Khaw noted, infocomm has become “more powerful, ubiquitous and cheaper”, a trend in sharp contrast to health care itself. Infocomm infrastructure such as the new national electronic health record system (NEHR) assumes added importance.
With the contract for its first phase awarded recently, NEHR will be built over the next decade to enable hospitals and doctors to avoid the need to store and retrieve multiple paper case files. The one-patient, one-record system will allow different caregivers to refer to the same notes. This should minimise error and duplication. Elderly patients, often seeing more than one doctor for more than one illness, will benefit the most. The trail Singapore is blazing will be relevant to other Asian countries, however, whether or not they have an ageing population. Not only will it improve quality of treatment, but the greater efficiency it brings will also help contain overall costs.
Development of other medical infocomm applications will give Singapore an edge. Permanent Secretary (Health) Yong Ying-I has sketched a scenario of physicians following up through telemedicine with foreign patients who have returned to their countries after treatment here. If feasible clinically, this would provide a huge advantage in the competitive medical tourism industry. The more enterprising Singapore specialists who have begun setting up associate clinics in other Asian cities might not need to travel there as frequently. Such innovations as a urinalytical toilet seat that A*Star scientists are testing will call up and report test results in real time. Benefits abound as Singapore health care scales up technologically.
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