Health 360 event shares strategies to mitigate rising healthcare costs

The rising cost of corporate healthcare is fast becoming a great source of concern for many companies. Based on the assessment by our health minister, Mr. Khaw Boon Wan, healthcare spending in Singapore may rise from current 4 percent of GDP to nearly 10 percent, and when that happens, it would mean that individuals will be spending 12 to 15 percent of their income on medical expenses alone.

While the figure is staggering, companies can salvage the situation by turning expenditure into investment. A study by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) on 11 organisations found that for every dollar that these organisations had spent on family friendly programmes, these companies reaped an average return of $1.68. The benefit came largely from retention of staff and increase in productivity.

Held on 21 Oct 2009, Health 360, an event organised by Alliance Healthcare, shares insights of health challenges in today's workplace, and possible solutions and strategies to mitigate the situation of rising healthcare costs. With distinguished speakers from major stakeholders of corporate healthcare, the event provides deeper understanding towards the current corporate healthcare practices, the potential they hold, as well as a possible future.

"Currently, many corporate healthcare initiatives are fragmented, ad-hoc and even in silos without any clear measureable return on investments on the healthcare expenditure," says Dr. Barry Thng, Chief Executive of Alliance Healthcare Group. At such an infant stage, the local corporate healthcare scene holds much potential to reap better returns.

Dr Leow Yung Khee, Executive Vice President of Great Eastern Life, agrees that the local scene holds much potential. "Singapore's healthcare system inculcates a strong sense of personal responsibility as each individual looks after his or her own health and pay for the relevant services," This provides platform for individuals to seek for ways of improving their health conditions to minimize medical expenses.

According to Frost & Sullivan's Senior Consultant for Health Management and Health Information Systems (HIS), Dr. Pawel Suwinski, "Many organizations have already recognized the importance of holistic approach to employees' welfare and start using integrated health management that incorporates wellness elements."

With support and funding from SPRING Singapore, Alliance Healthcare tackles this problem by developing an integrated IT system that allows for the clear measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This increases transparency without violating doctor/patient confidentiality, providing accountability for every dollar spent. This proprietary system empowers companies with the visibility and insights into their healthcare needs and challenges, enabling to align their health policies to mitigate these risks.

"This sophisticated platform allows quality medical programmes to be executed in a scalable and cost-effective manner, thus improves employees' health and lowers medical expenses in long term," adds Dr. Thng.

The concept of this new health management solution has attracted the attendance of key HR leaders and professionals from leading companies that afternoon.