FIRST Planned expansion of Taiwan’s long-term care system will encourage and attract private investment in facilities and services.
Playing catch up with healthcare innovations
Dr Annabelle R. Borromeo, St Luke’s
Dr Annabelle R. Borromeo, senior vice president & head of hospital operations at St Luke’s Medical Center shared with us the hospital’s strategies in catching up with healthcare innovation. High time for long-term care system
Hunger for long-term care
W
TAIWAN
ith people over 65 years old representing 12% of Taiwan’s total population in 2014, up from 10.7% in 2010, demographic ageing is increasing pressure on government spending – highlighting the significance of the country’s proposal to expand its long-term care system. “Given public budget constraints, we anticipate the planned expansion of Taiwan’s longterm care system will attract private investment in facilities and services to meet the needs of the growing elderly population,” says Lily Wong, managing director, PwC. In mid-July
2016, Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare released a proposal for the expansion of its long-term care system, which will come into effect this year. According to The Economist, the health and welfare ministry estimates that the programme will require initial funding of around NT$20.8b (US$652m) in 2017, compared with a budget of NT$5.1b (US$165m) in 2016 for the current programme. The new ten-year “Long-term Care Plan 2.0” is an extension of the original plan that was approved by Taiwan’s cabinet in 2007.
How much should hospitals invest to keep up with healthcare tech? At St. Lukes, we do have patient experience officers, and they walked the patients through the continuum of care in the hospital. Some of them are really not that expensive. So for example, there are a lot of apps right now that are health related that can be incorporated into a continuum of care, process or product. Ah, but yes if we’re talking about IT or healthcare information systems.. These are quite substantial investments, but a way to move forward is to just get it in phases and that’s how some of the hospitals have been able to acquire these expensive systems. So there are creative ways, and innovative ways to acquire those.
The Chartist: SINGAPORE TO CASH IN ON ITS BALLOONING SILVER POPULATION A silver tsunami has come to Singapore as the number of citizens aged 65 years and above went from one in 11 in 2005 to one in eight in 2015. This is expected to increase further to one in six by 2020. In addition, hospital admission rate increases with age. John Cheong, analyst at Maybank Kim Eng, says that an ageing population is a structural growth driver for Singapore’s healthcare sector. This, along with its high-end medical infrastructure, will boost the industry as the bulk of the patients belong to the premium segment and are more inelastic to pricing and currency fluctuations. “Medical tourism revenue grew at a 10% CAGR in the last decade, to around SG$1b (US$711m) currently,” Cheong says.
Number of Singapore citizens aged 65 and above
Sources: Maybank Kim Eng, Population.sg
Hospital admissions increase with age
Sources: Maybank Kim Eng, Singapore Ministry of Health
HEALTHCARE ASIA 5