The healthcare analytics landscape in Singapore: Evolving to deliver better care

• Main Authors: TAN, Kar Way, LAM, Sean Shao Wei, CHEAH, Sin Mei
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Health; Healthcare; healthcare delivery; analytics; predictive analytics; big data; Asian Studies; Public Health
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cases_coll_all/316; https://smu.sharepoint.com/sites/admin/CMP/cases/SMU-20-BATCH%20%5BPDF-Pic%5D/SMU-20-0026%20%5BHealthcare%20Analytics%5D/SMU-20-0026%20%5BHealthcare%20Analytics%5D.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

In the span of half a century, Singapore’s healthcare system had undergone a major transformation along with the country’s economic growth. From a developing nation plagued with tropical communicable diseases and malnutrition in the 1960s, Singapore had progressed significantly to become the second-healthiest country in Asia in 2019, according to Bloomberg. Successive reforms had enabled Singapore to transition from providing residents with basic healthcare services in the 1960s to service quality and cost-effectiveness in the 1980s. In the Healthcare 2020 Masterplan, the country prioritised improving accessibility, quality and affordability of public healthcare services to cater to the future needs of an ageing population with longer life expectancies and declining birth rate. To this end, data analytics could play a catalytic role in facilitating the successful implementation of the Masterplan, and by the late 2010s, several data analytics initiatives had been carried out by Singapore’s restructured public hospitals. For example, in patient treatment and preventive care, data analytics was used to reduce waiting time for surgery patients, and to forecast diabetic patients at risk of developing serious medical complications respectively. Looking ahead, what would further propel the adoption of healthcare analytics in Singapore? This case is intended for use in a course focusing on data analytics. This case provides an understanding of how the healthcare sector in Singapore transformed digitally and adopted data analytics. Students will be able to appreciate: (1) Singapore’s healthcare landscape; (2) centralised and decentralised data management; (3) the role of open data in the co-creation of healthcare solutions; (4) healthcare data analytics applications; and (5) trends in smart healthcare and self-care.