Ministry of Health No need for greater transparency around clinical outcomes
AIA Singapore medical director Alan Ong feels that the Ministry of Health (MOH) should provide more transparency around clinical outcomes and quality indicators (The coming healthcare crisis: Unsustainable financing, March 7).

I assume that putting this data together with medical fee benchmarks would give the public a better feel of the healthcare value, thus allowing better-informed choices.

Two other benefits Mr Ong cites are that this information will help insurers and also drive healthcare improvement.

While these benefits may be desirable, we need to look at the issue from other angles.

MOH is already conducting patient satisfaction surveys at public healthcare institutions, and regularly publishing the results.

These surveys look at multiple touch points of a patient's journey through the healthcare institution.

As the survey allows open-ended feedback, it should give an indication of the clinical quality delivered, since the feedback comes from the patient and caregivers.

These survey results at hospital level inevitably put considerable pressure on lagging hospitals to improve, and on leading hospitals to keep doing well.

Such scrutiny is not to be underestimated, given the intense pressure healthcare professionals go through daily due to an increasingly complex and demanding healthcare environment.

Also, let's not forget that Singapore performs consistently well in global rankings on healthcare efficiency and outcomes.

We must have good systems in place to achieve such lofty rankings.

All things considered, should we ask for more transparency around clinical outcomes and quality indicators? I would say no.

Lau Wai Leong

Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/no-need-for-greater-transparency-around-clinical-outcomes

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