Measurement of Integrated Care on the level of Regional Health System in Singapore

Abstract

In response to the rapidly aging population of Singapore and the increasing demands on healthcare, the Singapore healthcare system was reorganized into six regional health systems (RHS) according to geographic locations to provide a better integrated health system. In each of the RHS, an acute hospital works closely with the community hospital, nursing homes, homecare providers, general practitioners and polyclinics to deliver seamless and holistic care to patients. However, even with an increasing awareness of the needs to better integrate the health system, there is no universal definition and method of integrated care. Furthermore, the recent initiative of RHS has not been evaluated. Therefore, this study aims to (i) explore the concept of integrated care in the Singapore context (ii) validate an integrated care measure developed by Valentijn et a.l (iii) measure the nature and degree of integrated care within and across the RHS and (iv) provide recommendations to improve integrated care in Singapore. Focus group discussions will be conducted to gather opinions from healthcare users of the RHS about the concept of integrated care. Healthcare professionals from the RHS will be surveyed for validation of the integrated care instrument and measurement of the level of integrated care of the RHS. The degree of integrated care of the RHS will then be compared to the international community and recommendations will be made based on the triangulation of data collected from the healthcare users and professionals. Results of this study which will be presented during the conference will provide insights on the degree of integrated care within and across the RHS to provide recommendations for improvements of the RHS. Data collected from this study can also be used as a baseline reference for prospective follow up.