Improving Information Sharing and Integration of Processes between Healthcare Clusters to Enhance Patient Experience

2 Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Health (a) what are the plans to improve information sharing and integration of processes between the three healthcare clusters to enhance patient experience; and (b) whether the Ministry is exploring the use of a single mobile app for the different healthcare systems so that patients and caregivers need not use multiple apps.

The Senior Minister of State for Health (Dr Janil Puthucheary) (for the Minister for Health): Sir, there are ongoing efforts to improve information sharing and the delivery of digital services to enhance the patient experience.

The National Electronic Health Record (NEHR) system enables sharing of patient summary health records across care providers, including the three public healthcare clusters. We will progressively build up its coverage to include information from more healthcare providers to support care continuity.

A common pharmacy system for the three public healthcare clusters is underway, to allow consolidation of patient information, which allows providers to have a more holistic view of patients' medications and facilitate the filling of prescriptions. MOH and the healthcare clusters are also developing a national charging and billing system to streamline processes and enable a more consistent experience for patients.

Common digital services across the clusters, such as the scheduling of appointments and bill payments, are available on the national HealthHub mobile app and web portal. HealthHub also displays personal health records drawn from national systems, including for example, the COVID-19 vaccination records and COVID-19 test results.

These common services are also made available through the clusters' apps. This reduces duplication of development effort and facilitates consistent user experience, regardless of the platform a person prefers to use to connect with our healthcare system.

Meanwhile, the presence of healthcare cluster-specific apps enables those healthcare providers to customise features tailored to their specific facilities and services, and also to innovate on user-interaction features that could better engage their patients. Over time, some of these new innovations that are well-received and successful in engaging patients can be incorporated as common services that are then made available to all patients in their preferred platform, be it HealthHub or one of the cluster apps.

We will continue to improve our digital services and enhance our offerings to improve the user experience.

Mr Speaker: Mr Yip Hon Weng.

Mr Yip Hon Weng (Yio Chu Kang): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Senior Minister of State for his reply. Will the Ministry consider integrating all healthcare functionalities into the LifeSG app, since more than 70 Government services are on that app already? This is to make it more convenient for residents as they have only to use one app to interface with Government, as opposed to having to download many different apps to interface with the Government.

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Sir, we continue to study all the different modes for patients and citizens to interact with Government. LifeSG is one of those that aggregates a number of services. There are other portals and means through which citizens engage with Government. And the engagement with Government is different from the engagement with your healthcare provider.

So, where it works for the patient experience – maybe for safety, for information gathering, or for user experience – we will always be considering how to optimise and streamline. The nature of many of the products' platforms that the Member refers to, is that they are the front-end for common core services. The backbone is common, the data standards are common, the information sharing processes are common. But then, engaging with a particular provider allows a user experience, as well as facilities specific services to then be deployed.

So, it is not an "either or". The example that the Member gave with LifeSG is salient to this because in LifeSG, many of those functions are also accessible through other means, where it is appropriate for either the provider or for the citizen. We will continue to review the entire space.