National Healthcare Group
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The NHG has been able to achieve this with the help of IT, using various tools to capture, store, process, retrieve, disseminate and utilize electronic information in clinical care, patient administration and business management.
The group continues to focus on building a strong infrastructure, underlined with good corporate governance, to support its delivery of healthcare services and to improve patient care.
It measures success based on how well its policies, decisions and programs directly benefit patients, such as lower healthcare bills, shorter hospital stays, speedier service and better treatment.
To meet these objectives, the NHG constantly looks toward technology and is unwavering in using proven IT tools to increase efficiencies.
One example of the group's innovative use of technology is reflected in its e-rostering system, which was deployed to enhance working conditions of the group's nursing staff. The system allows staff to bid for their preferred work shifts, and enables the hospital to better allocate healthcare staff according to their qualifications.
The e-rostering system helped reduce the time spent on workforce management by 71 percent and improve overall staff satisfaction with regards to work scheduling.
The NHG also put IT to good use when it built an online dashboard to manage bed capacity at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. The ability to match demand and supply of bed resources quickly is crucial in patient care. With the online dashboard, the hospital is not only able to better manage limited bed resources, it also reduced a patient's waiting time to be allocated a bed.
The healthcare services provider is also co-winner of the Public Sector Tech Project of the Year special award, for its Lab Information and Automation System (LIS).
Tommy Tan, the group's ITD director of business development, said: "NHG believes in exploiting IT to gain a competitive edge and increase productivity. We feel IT is a tool to help make care faster, better, safer and cheaper. Thus, we aim to look for innovative ways to use IT to improve our productivity and care, while reducing cost to treat our patients."
"In 2006 and 2007, we are focused on deploying applications that support clinicians directly in their provision of care, as well as testing out new innovative technologies to reach out to patients and other care providers."