By Ivy Lai
Country Manager, Philips Singapore
Ivy Lai is the Country Manager for Philips Singapore. She is responsible for overseeing Philips Singapore’s transition strategy from a consumer electronics company to a leader in health technology.
Globally, growing and aging populations, rising rates of chronic diseases and skills shortages are putting healthcare systems under immense pressure. In Singapore, for example, the government expects the population of people aged 65 years and older to double by 20301.
To help medical resources go further, and to provide better care for all, telehealth is being heralded as a silver bullet.
The World Health Organization describes telehealth as the use of telecommunications and virtual technology to deliver healthcare outside of traditional healthcare facilities – extending the reach of high-quality care and in-depth expertise to places like the home, as well as to remote and underserved communities. While the industry is still relatively new, it is estimated that the global telehealth market will reach USD$19.5 billion by 20252.
Telehealth has numerous benefits for both healthcare practitioners and patients.
Firstly, it enhances access by bringing care within reach of more people. For example, it can enable remote patient monitoring whereby patients can receive diagnosis, treatment or condition management from the comfort of their homes, without having to physically see a doctor or stay in a hospital. This is great for providing care for elderly and less mobile patients, as well as people living in remote areas where healthcare facilities are not easily accessible.
Telehealth can also boost efficiency. By enabling care to be delivered quickly across time zones and geographies, it can reduce overall costs and promote better outcomes. For example, it can promote collaboration by enabling the secure sharing of medical information between clinicians at different locations. In practical terms, this means that travel time of consultants can be cut down or eliminated, to be reallocated to patient care.
Lastly, it also supports patient satisfaction. Telehealth enables people to receive high-quality care to fit a variety of needs on demand, regardless of their locations. The ability to provide care without the boundaries of time and location can also boost patient experiences due to factors such as reduced waiting times.
The good news is that in Singapore, two-thirds (64%) of healthcare professionals currently use some form of connected care technology for diagnosis, treatment or management of their patients’ conditions, according to our Future Health Index (FHI). This rate is higher compared to developed nations like the United States of America (46%), Germany (45%) and France (40%).
The growing adoption of telehealth is also driven by an ever more connected general population who is increasingly more prepared to embrace technology to improve their healthcare. Our 2018 FHI report found that in Singapore, half of the general population (50%) has used some form of connected care technology already to monitor health indicators such as weight, blood sugar levels, and medication intake.
While it is positive to see that more healthcare practitioners and patients are embracing telehealth, there is still a long way to go before it reaches its full potential. Key to this will be for countries to ensure that they have the right policies and frameworks in place to support it, as many often fall behind when it comes to ‘new’ technologies.
In the case of telehealth, our FHI report found that many healthcare systems have not yet formalized reimbursement models and frameworks for data sharing, which are needed for its wider adoption and long-term success.
To widen the adoption of it in Singapore, the government and the healthcare sector can take the following steps.
While the benefits telehealth brings to clinicians and the general population are clear, more work needs to be done in the healthcare sector to agree on a common language, framework and new reimbursement model for the technology to reach its full potential.
1 https://www.gov.sg/news/content/singapore-feeling-impact-of-rapidly-ageing-population
2Transparency Market Research, Telehealth Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2017–2025, https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/telehealth-market.htm