Moderator:
Dr Marcus Lee, Academic Director, Institute of Service Excellence at SMU
Panelists:
1. Ms Norma Sit, Chief Executive Officer, Numoni Group
2. Dr Agnes Koong, Clinic Director, SingHealth Polyclinics - Marine Parade
3. Dr Jeremy Lim, Partner & Head of Asia Pacific Region, Health & Life Sciences, Oliver Wyman
Background
The 2015 Q4 Finance & Insurance and Healthcare & Full Year results were announced by the Institute of Service Excellence at SMU (ISES) on Wednesday 30 March 2016.
The 2015 national score of 70.2 declined for the first time since 2011, due in part to poorer year-on-year performance from the Finance & Insurance and Healthcare sectors.
The Finance & Insurance sector score registered a decline from the previous year to 70.9. The Healthcare sector registered a decline to a score of 69.6.
Of the nine other industry sectors measured earlier in 2015, performance was generally lacklustre. The Private Education sector scored lower year-on-year. The Info-communications, Retail, and Tourism sectors did not register substantial changes. However, the Food & Beverage and Public Education sectors recorded higher scores. The Air Transport, Land Transport, and Logistics sectors were introduced in 2015 and thus do not have a year-on-year benchmark comparison.
The latest results are based on a face-to-face survey of 9,399 locals and 350 tourist respondents conducted between October 2015 and January 2016.
Engaging global customers online
Ms Norma Sit, CEO of fintech startup Numoni Group, noted that most people who go online know what they’re looking for when it comes to the online shopping experience. It takes one experiment that goes well for the consumer to return and develop loyalty for a certain brand or e-store.
“As an e-tailer, you need to present your goods very well. In the retail sector so far, we’ve always focused on improving the physical aesthetics of the shop, however it is important to remember the online presence, building a distinct brand online, and making that experience memorable so that the customer keeps returning.”
The ratings system ensures that one’s online reputation matters.
Design thinking process
Dr Agnes Koong, Clinic Director, SingHealth Polyclinics - Marine Parade shared the redesign journey the polyclinic undertook last year. Adopting a design thinking methodology, Dr Koong engaged everyone from doctors to nurses in the redesign process which took just over six months.
"Handling patients from various backgrounds is our challenge, so we had to figure out how to engineer the message for our patients of different literacy levels. So in terms of design thinking, we wanted to make it very intuitive and ensure the flow of how to deliver care made sense to us.”
The frontline staff have the best understanding of what’s needed, so it was important to incorporate their knowledge to ensure expectations were met.
Dr Marcus Lee, ISES’ Academic Director agreed that it was important to conceptualise what a company does to manage expectations, and that it would be easy to lose focus if the knowledge of the frontliners isn’t incorporated in the design thinking process.
Private vs public healthcare expectations
Dr Jeremy Lim, Partner & Head of Asia Pacific Region, Health & Life Sciences, Oliver Wyman observed that in restructured hospitals, the more healthcare professionals a patient sees, the less positive their experience.
However, this cannot be avoided due to the capacity constraints and high service loads where there is a need to optimise around the most scare resource – the health professional.
In reference to the dip of the restructured hospitals sub-sector score, Dr Lim noted that it was not surprising. “Each department in healthcare tries to optimise the experience, however when you have to see several specialists in a restructured hospital, you won’t have an optimised experience.
Whereas in the private sector, because there's more capacity, and you're paying for the system to be optimised around the patient, the experience becomes customer-centric.
Improving the patient experience through software redesign
Dr Koong noted it was essential for any tools to be user-friendly for doctors to use effectively. At Marine Parade Polyclinic, the doctors employ at least two electronic systems with various tabs that they toggle through for each patient. This can be a difficult process. She suggested that improving the user interface would be key, so as to allow information to flow more easily.
"Key information from each touchpoint should be able to flow through easily to relevant parties, however this takes a lot of engineering and understanding to work.” In an ideal situation, relevant information would be easily accessed by relevant parties.
Going digital
In relation to the possibilities of digitising healthcare and consulting remotely, Dr Lim remarked that healthcare is just one of those sectors where people need to physically see a health professional.
"There are two critical elements that are missing and we haven’t found the courage to transition the financial model. In most hospitals, doctors are paid on the ‘fee for service’ model, and if a service is not delivered, there is no payment."
"Many local doctors are already offering informal teleconsults. However we haven’t managed to transition to a billing model, so these are offered as value-added services."
The second factor is risk. Healthcare by nature, is conservative, so the willingness to adopt and change is slow.
He concludes that although the technology exists, the industry hasn’t figured out the viable business model, and accept that with any new care delivery models, who will bear the risk it presents.
Opportunities in the online space
The CSISG results have shown that digital interaction has increased over time however it doesn't have a significant impact on customer satisfaction.
Dr Lee comments that this is probably because there is no need or opportunity to delight a customer who does internet banking as it is seen as a "hygiene" factor. "Today internet banking is just "hygiene" but having said that, there lies a huge opportunity if we can figure it out."
Can the banks do more to enchance the online experience? Are customers ready to adopt an enhanced online experience?