Covid-19 crisis Improve communication with people placed on isolation
I sent this message to minister for health on 4 October 2021. He replied that his ministry is looking into the matter. 

They are not interested to hear my suggestion, or to use my experience. 

I learned later, from several accounts, that the people placed on isolation had a difficult time to communicate with MOH.

Dear minister

I watched your interview on the challenges that you faced in managing the large number of home recovery cases. 

Specifically, the patients (under home isolation) face delays in getting through to the hotline and talking to a doctor.

I suggest the following:

1. Decentralize the communication by appointing one support staff to handle 30 to 50 patients
2. Empower the support staff to communicate with the patients (and vice versa) using a mobile phone or whatsapp. 
3. In the case of elderly patients who are not familiar with using mobile phone, the communication can be done through a family member. 
4. The support staff can also receive the daily tests (temperature, oximeter reading, ART reading, etc) and update the platform.
5. The support staff can send messages to the telemedicine doctor or mobile PCR team for follow up action with the patients.

This approach is similar to how an insurance company uses agents to deal with customers. 
The agents are able to handle most of the issues faced by customers.
They only need to escalate the difficult cases to the back room specialists to follow up.

The immediate response of the support staff will give confidence to the patients.

If you find this approach useful, I can help you, or your ministry, to find a suitable platform to manage this process.

Tan Kin Lian

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I admire your patience and desire to help this PAP Millionaire for Health. I gave up on PAP a long time ago. - my middle finger does all my talking to PAP Millionaires now.

Peter Ong  04 Nov 2021  

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