Analysis of SingHealth’s Strategic Plan

Introduction

SingHealth is a healthcare organization that is focused on providing the best healthcare for its patients. Serving as Academic Medical Centre, SingHealth boasts for its convergence of clinical care, education and research. These attributes help this healthcare organization in its pursuit for innovations to equip it to offer better and more accessible care to its patients. SingHealth has made its institutions to be centers for excellence. The organization has made considerable moves in developing a strong care network with transcending institution boundaries. This has made it possible for the patients to access the right health care anytime there are in need of such. This paper will make an assessment of how Singhealth is adapted in dealing with the healthcare needs of the citizens, review its strategic plan, and make a comparison with Singapore Airlines.  

Readiness in Dealing with Citizens’ Healthcare Needs

The readiness in addressing the healthcare needs of the citizens at SingHealth can be deduced from its shared common purpose that states that, “Patients, At the heart of all we do.” Throug this, the organization is therefore united in the common agenda and focused on providing the best care possible for its patients. The vision of the healthcare organization is “Defining Tomorrow’s Medicine.” This indicates that the Singhealth is not just focused on addressing the present health concerns for the citizens but rather focused on providing sustainable solutions to healthcare issues facing the citizens (SingHealth, 2018).  

Singhealth has developed its new model of care referred as Singhealth Duke-NUS Disease Centers (SDDC). This is evidence of the readiness that Singhealth has in addressing the health concern even in the next decade. This model of care brings together specialists from different disciplines and organizations, spread across the cycle of care and stretching from diagnosis to treatment. This system has been critical in setting standards care, training and accreditation. It also offers oversight of care and delivery of outcomes. The model of care has incorporated the utilization of big data for research and quality improvement. This new approach entails collaborative care that puts emphasis on developing a comprehensive database of patients to facilitate provision of care and research. This will help to even address the healthcare issues spreading even over the next decade as its long-term effects is on changing the manner in which treatments are recommended (SingHealth DukeNUS, 2017).  

The mission of Singhealth is another important indicator to the readiness of the organization in addressing the healthcare needs of the citizens in the next decade. Through its three elements, the mission statement of SingHealth is evidence of the commitment of this organization in addressing the needs of patients. The first element of the mission statement indicates that the organization is dedicated in offering care to heal. In achieving this, the organization commits to providing consistent high-quality care, use of multidisciplinary team, focus on patient safety, continual improvements, and achieving the best clinical outcomes. The next element of the mission statement highlights the organization’s commitment to providing education with an aim of empowering it workforce. SingHealth reaffirms its commitment to nurturing generations of healthcare practitioners and equipping them adequately to share the future of healthcare. In its pursuit of excellence in academic medicine, SingHealth identifies the need to harness the skills, knowledge, and talent of all its human resources (SingHealth, 2018). In the third element of the mission statement, SingHealth focuses on innovation with an aim of advancing in technology for healthcare provision. To achieve this, the organization seeks innovation of its service, facilities, and products. SingHealth indicates that it is driven by spirit of inquiry, scientific curiosity, and an urge to convert the research work into advances the directly benefits the patients.

Strategic Plan

In its masterplan, SingHealth indicates its commitment to expand its capacity to cater for more than 900000 inpatients, and 1.3 specialist outpatient visits handled in 2015 (SingHealth DukeNUS, 2016). This put a need for the healthcare organization to reframe the manner in which it provided its care. The strategic plan is focused on taking progressive steps to see it move from institution to person-oriented care. The masterplan outlines how redevelopment process of the Outram site for a span of 20 years to accommodate care across institutional boundaries. The SingHealth Regional Health System has been expanded to handle a population size of 790,000 (SingHealth DukeNUS, 2016). To increase its network growth, SingHealth seeks to work closely with partners in the care continuum. These include general practitioners, intermediates and long-term agencies, and voluntary organization. The SingHealth regional health system is guided on its development mission by its quadruple aim comprised of better health for the population, better care for individuals, improved provider satisfaction, and lower cost improvement. In its journey to attaining network growth, SingHealth is focused in optimizing the rehabilitation of its facilities with a focus on integrating its facilities include the SingHealth National Specialty Centers, and Outram Community Hospital, Nursing homes, outpatient clinics, social services, polyclinics and palliative care centers.

SingHealth aims at improving on patient satisfaction through its new model of care that will allow the patient to move seamlessly between the different levels of care. The journey for the care include moving from acute hospital ward, to a community hospital ward for long term care and later care at home. The healing spaces in its facilities have been purposefully designed to allow easy movement. Among the key issues addressed on the strategic plan on patient satisfaction in on patient safety where the organization targets zero harm to ensure that the patients get safe care through best practices sharing through multiple channels, patient empowerment, commitment and recognition, and sustained leadership communications through multiple platforms.

Another key component of strategic plan relates with resource management. SingHealth relies on prudent procurement strategies as a means of making the costs affordable. In this area, the SingHealth seeks to utilize strategic sourcing for product categories within cluster and national level. The organization seeks to use market intelligence in coming up with sourcing strategies. It relies on lead technology and carrying out of supply selection jointly with key stakeholders and clinicians.

SingHealth has over 12000 nurses serving across its different care settings. The nursing career path at SingHealth follows the clinical path, management path, or the education path. Nurses the organization are involved in caring for the sick, mentoring novice nurses, and engaging in research of new cures and treatments. SingHealth provides a good avenue for career development where the nurses are offered chances for collaboration and training under top specialists from over 42 clinical disciplines. The nurses thereby have an opportunity for growth, learning, and following a clear path that is in line with their passion of being of service to others.

Comparison of SingHealth and Singapore Airline.

In relation to its staffing programs, Singapore Airlines and SingHealth differs a lot despite both having a common goal of offering quality services to its clients. Singapore Airlines staffing program was comprised of careful selection and individual performance. Applicants were typically young and with no advanced education qualification. At SingHealth, staffing includes seeking qualified personnel on different medical disciplines with minimum qualification being college level. Both Singapore Airline and SingHealth are concerned with providing training and development opportunities for its staff.

Both Singapore Airline and SingHealth puts emphasis on the quality of customer service offered and customer satisfaction. Singapore Airline are in line with the Asian culture that includes attention to detail, impeccable presentation and concern for others. Singapore Airline has sought to match is services with Asian culture with a common symbol this being a young Asian woman. SingHealth is also concerned on enhanced customer satisfaction. SingHealth puts the patient, who is their primary customer, at the heart of everything that they do.

In reference of network growth, Singapore airline seeks to measure its service quality. The first means of measuring quality at Singapore Airline is through a system the measure the customer reviews for every 10000 passengers. The second measurement aspect involves comparison with the quality metrics provided by the International Research Associates (INRA). The importance in this is for Singapore Airlines to attain a competitive edge over its competitors. On the other hand, SingHealth seek to attain zero harm to its patients as a quality measure. SignHealth also seek to develop its physical facilities in a manner that is adaptive to the provision of healthcare plan.

References

SingHealth. (2018). Corporate Profile. Retrieved from https://www.singhealth.com.sg/AboutSingHealth/CorporateOverview/CorporateProfile/Pages/Home.aspx

SingHealth DukeNUS. (2017). Annual Report 2016/2017; Journey Home: Beyond Hospital Walls . Surbana: Singapore Health Services.

SingHealth DukeNUS. (2016). Annual Report 2015; Future of Healthcare . Surbana: Singapore Health Services.