I spent a better part of Saturday with the NUHS residents across different specialties. A duty and privilege to share perspectives and learn from each other. Many of us in the private sector acquire so much of our skills and knowledge whilst in the public sector and only right we ‘pay it forward’. I must […]
I was in Tokyo recently to speak at an international meeting to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Japan Association for Healthcare Balanced Scorecard Studies. Yes, the Japanese are very serious about performance tracking and use of management tools to uplift and improve. Prof Toshiro Takahashi, President of the Association and Prof Daisuke Koide, Chair of the […]
‘Business model innovation’ is all the craze in the commercial healthcare world, what with increasing consumerization, ‘digitalization’ and payer pricing pressures. It’s also become clear that there are fundamental differences between the ecosystems for health as opposed to healthcare. In reviewing the recent Singapore budget debates on the health sector, I felt going ‘Beyond Healthcare […]
I was honored to be invited as a speaker and panel discussant at yesterday’s Behavioral Sciences Institute Annual Conference on ‘Unintended Consequences’. The gist of my presentation and ensuing discussion are as below: Health is a complex adaptive system and the complexity, inter-relations and externalities which drive unintended consequences are beyond complete human appreciation and […]
This will be a long post and so apologies in advance. I wanted to be transparent and share the correspondence I had with the TODAY journalist who was obtaining perspectives for a ‘Big Read’ on healthcare productivity. This was published yesterday in a long piece titled “The Big Read: Beyond a jobs boost, healthcare sector […]
Rising cost, regional rivals weaken Singapore’s medical tourism appeal- Business Times 11th Nov 2015
I was recently interviewed by the Business Times for a feature story on medical tourism in Singapore. Below are the questions and my responses: In your opinion, are there any other reasons why Singapore is losing these patients? My view is that there are 4 main reasons: 1. Unfavorable currency situation 2. High costs in […]
My recent commentary “Why Singapore must have foreign patients” (Straits Times 22 July 2015) created quite a stir with many lambasting the views presented or thanking me for raising issues which had been difficult in this political climate to voice publicly especially if one was in the public sector. Two issues are probably worth clarifying […]
I was asked by a journalist to comment on the Singapore Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS) and the impact on polyclinic consultation volumes. Below are the queries and responses. Queries: Other than providing subsidised care in the community, another purpose of CHAS is also to ease the patient load of polyclinics. However, despite the significant […]
The MediShield Life Review Committee’s final report and recommendations dominated the headlines over the weekend. This was perhaps not wholly unexpected as these are the most major reforms to Singapore’s healthcare system since Medisave in the early 1980s. Various online commentators including Bertha Henson and Leong Sze Hian have offered their interpretations while the mainstream […]
Insights Health Associates 
Building a Health Promoting and Disease Preventing Ecosystem with sustainable business models
In an earlier commentary for TODAY, one of Singapore’s national newspapers, I commented that whilst the Ministry of Health’s exhortation to go ‘Beyond Healthcare to Health’ was laudable and a necessary pivot of the Singapore model, there did not exist today business models that encourage health promotion and disease prevention. Instead, as with most health […]