A leading-edge and patient-focused Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system has earned Singapore Health Services (SingHealth) regional accolades. For its cluster-wide implementation of this innovative IT system, SingHealth will receive the prestigious CIO Asia Award 2004 at a ceremony to be held on 12 March 2004. This is the first time that a healthcare organisation has received such honours from the regional business community represented by CIO Asia.
The judging panel cited SingHealth's EMR project as an outstanding initiative that brought significant value to both its patients and internal users. It also lauded the public healthcare cluster's ability to use technology innovatively to add value and increase business efficiency. The award recognises the SingHealth IT team's efforts to improve the public healthcare experience for patients.
Pioneering the shared EMR system in public healthcare, all of SingHealth's 3 Hospitals, 4 National Centres and 8 Polyclinics successfully went online with the system by 2003. Reinforcing the infrastructure for shared patient care across the cluster, this IT initiative has given SingHealth a single, consistent and integrated view of patient information such as hospital inpatient discharge summaries, medical prescriptions, drug allergies, laboratory tests and radiology reports. With such an integrated system, SingHealth's clinicians and medical staff now have more timely and efficient access to patients' medical records. The benefits of EMR include time and cost savings for patients as the need repeat for medical investigations are minimised. In addition, doctors have the necessary information to reduce unnecessary medication side effects by preventing drug interactions. The EMR system also facilitates patient management and follow-up at the appropriate seating through sharing of patient records between multi-disciplinary care teams.
Patients now have the flexibility to move conveniently between SingHealth hospitals and polyclinics to seek care and treatment. Patients with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes or stroke, can also receive follow-up care at neighbourhood polyclinics instead of traveling to hospitals and specialist centres. To date, a total of 2,500 workstations have been installed with the EMR software and an estimated 6,200 users trained and accessing the EMR system cluster-wide. The 400 GB data in the EMR database contains 1.4 million records of patients seeking treatment from SingHealth's institutions.
Said Mrs Chng Wong Yin, Group Chief Information Officer of SingHealth, "As a public healthcare provider, we have always been mindful of the importance of bringing value to our patients and staff while containing costs. IT has always played an important role in driving excellence in patient care, service integration and operational efficiency at SingHealth. The recognition of CIO Asia is a strong encouragement to our team, and bears testament to our commitment to our patients and fellow healthcare colleagues."
Commenting on SingHealth's award, Mr Raoul Le Blond, Editor of CIO Asia, said, "Winning a CIO Award is not an easy feat. SingHealth competed with nearly 140 other Asian enterprises to make it to the CIO 100, CIO Asia's annual index of Asian organisations adding the most value to their business through the strategic application of IT. It is from this index that the winners of the CIO Awards are drawn. All CIO 100 nominees are scrutinised on the individual IT and business projects/systems and/or initiatives that they submit to the judging committee. Among many factors that were considered, we looked for evidence of best practice in IT implementation, good governance, excellent, demonstrable ROI, and careful methodology. SingHealth performed well in all of these assessments and will be an example which other organisations can tap on and emulate."
SingHealth is the first healthcare cluster/organisation to win the CIO Award in Asia, since the programme's inception in Asia in 2001. It joins an elite group of Asian organisations that have clinched the CIO Award, including major corporations such as MTR Corp. of Hong Kong, PSA Corp., United Overseas Bank and Sarawak. SingHealth's EMR system also came out tops at the inaugural MIS Asia Innovation Awards event held in September last year. SingHealth was recognised for its efforts in rethinking business processes and introducing innovative technology that not only benefits its own business, but also the entire healthcare industry.
Background on CIO Asia Awards
The CIO 100 and CIO Awards is an annual programme run by CIO Asia that recognises innovation and best practices among Asian businesses.
The CIO 100 is a yearly listing of 100 organisations in the region who have added the most value to their organisations through the strategic, innovative and creative use of IT. A panel of judges comprising the CIO Asia editorial team, and leading business academics and analysts chooses CIO 100 honourees. Each year, from the CIO 100, a few organisations are further selected to receive CIO Awards.
This prestigious Award programme places organisations - both public and private - among an elite crop of outstanding performers. CIO Award winners not only demonstrate that they have added value to their business, but have also led the way through best practices and innovation, and are an example for other organisations to follow.
SingHealth
SingHealth is the largest provider of acute healthcare in Singapore, made up of 3 Hospitals, 4 National Specialist Centres and a network of 8 polyclinics. We are dedicated to providing quality healthcare that is affordable and accessible to our patients.
At SingHealth, we are guided by our shared values of Clinical Excellence, Commitment and Collaboration to provide Genuine Care to all our patients.
Members of the SingHealth group:
Hospitals
Changi General Hospital, KK Women's and Children's Hospital and Singapore General Hospital
National Specialist Centres
National Cancer Centre, National Dental Centre, National Heart Centre and Singapore National Eye Centre
SingHealth Polyclinics
Bedok, Bukit Merah, Geylang, Marine Parade, Outram, Pasir Ris, Queenstown and Tampines
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For more information, please contact:
Ms Joan Lew
Assistant Manager, Corporate Communications
SingHealth
DID: 6557 4914
joan.lew@singhealth.com.sg