From Providers to Integrated Systems: A Challenging Journey Ahead for Singapore

Singapore has a population of some 5.5 million people, and is today faced with the triple challenges of a rapidly ageing population, increased chronic disease prevalence, and most importantly, fragmentation of health care delivery. This presents to the policy-makers a “real and present” impetus and call-to-action to redesign and implement new care delivery models, strengthen the governance, incentives and financing for integration; and dramatically transform the Singapore health system to meet the rapidly evolving needs of our population. The vision for healthcare delivery in Singapore for tomorrow is to develop integrated Regional Healthcare Systems: geographically-defined patient-centric healthcare ecosystems comprising partners from the primary, acute and community care sectors, working collaboratively to deliver comprehensive and holistic healthcare services, to improve patient outcomes. Integrated clinical pathways (ICPs) cutting across different providers will ensure continuity of care, and care coordinators will ensure the patient transitions are seamless and coordinated. As such, the “centre of gravity” for health care will be shifted into the community, with increasing emphasis on the development of homeand community-based services to improve the overall patient journey, and promote “ageing in place” in the patient’s home. This presentation will outline the key principles of care integration applied in the transformational journey of Singapore’s health system, and the role of the Agency for Integrated Care in this whole process. The macro and local challenges to integration will be highlighted, and relevant examples of initiatives and technology that have been piloted or deployed, will also be discussed.