SINGAPORE: The Health Ministry has said it will
improve financing policies to keep healthcare affordable for all,
even for those who require longer-term care for chronic conditions
and ageing.
There will also be further expansion of public
healthcare infrastructure and manpower in the coming five years,
said the ministry on Wednesday in its addendum to the President's
Address on the opening of the 12th Parliament.
The ministry said Singaporeans will have greater
access to subsidised care in the community through new primary and
rehabilitative care facilities, and expanded portable subsidies for
private healthcare services.
The ministry added that it will strengthen the social safety net by
expanding subsidies for medication, outpatient care and
intermediate and long-term care.
The Ministerial Committee for Ageing will significantly step up
investments in more integrated health and social care facilities to
provide the elderly with the care they need.
The Health Ministry will also focus on extending the range and
coverage of healthcare services to tackle chronic conditions and
cancer, in particular cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
Its aim is to build up on integrated care for the chronically ill,
so their treatment will be managed on an ongoing, rather than
episodic basis. To do this, the ministry will further exploit
technology to make it easier for patients to move seamlessly
between providers.
One of the technologies introduced is the CLEO system (Clinic
specific Electronic Medical Record and Operations IT system) which
will facilitate the sharing of patient information among GPs.
With this system, GPs will now find it easier to follow up on care
for chronically ill patients, such as those suffering from diabetes
and high-blood pressure.
Dr Jonathan Pang Sze Kang, a GP with Everhealth Family Clinic &
Surgery, said: "This system is supposed to be intelligent enough to
give me reminders and prompt me to do certain things at certain
intervals for each individual chronic disease. That by itself is a
wonderful development. So in case I'm too busy or my nurses forget
to remind patients or I forgot to remind patients, the system
prompts me so that our delivery will be enhanced and improved
upon."
"So for example, if a patient has diabetes, the system will prompt
me every year that I need to do tests and maybe every three to six
months, I need to do certain assessments. And if I have not done
anything yet, the system will show me that nothing has been done
yet."
The system will start rolling out by the second quarter of next
year and by 2013, some 50 GP clinics will be equipped with
it.
With the CLEO system, GPs will have have access to the National
Electronics Health Record (NEHR) system which will provide them
with an array of patient information. These include their current
care received at other healthcare institutions, medication
histories, drug allergies, laboratory investigations, clinical
diagnoses and X-ray reports.
Dr Patrick Chia, Director of Clinical Transformation Services at
MOH Holdings, said: "They will do things in a more organised and
systematic manner in terms of clinical tools that will be used to
help them. They will find that they can find more specific
knowledge better... be able look up references in a better way.
They would be able to manage and track patients better... Because
many times in a manual world, tracking is just not tenable."
With more GPs sharing patient information, patient confidentiality
has been a concern among some patients. But GPs Channel NewsAsia
spoke to stressed that before their information is keyed in, it
will be agreed upon by relevant parties and must be crucial to the
management of their medical condition.
Dr Jonathan said: "Individual GPs must find out from their patients
what they are comfortable and what they are not comfortable with.
The GPs should also reassure their patients that their data and
information is confidential within the legal parameters laid down
in Singapore. So if for some reason, the patient chooses not to
divulge certain information then of course, we won't put this
information in the system."
The ministry's goal is to roll out the NEHR system to some 10 GPs,
a hospice and a nursing home by the end of this year. It will also
be rolled out to all public hospitals by June 2012.
Videos and text of President Tony Tan's speech at
the opening of parliament are available here
-CNA/ac