HPB Voices Reloaded

By Edmund Tan, ITD

The Student Health Assessment Programme (SHAPE) and Integrated Dental Electronic Assessment for Students (IDEAS) system captured another IT accolade – this time in the international arena, further reinforcing the Merit Award won in the National Infocomm Awards (NIA) 2006 for the Most Innovative Use of Infocomm Technology (Public Sector) category.

SHAPE & IDEAS is the Winner of the Healthcare Category at the Asia Pacific Information and Communication Technology Awards (APICTA) 2006.

The Asia Pacific Information and Communication Technology Awards (APICTA) is an international award programme which aims to stimulate ICT innovation and creativity, promote economic and trade relations, facilitate technology transfer, and offer business matching opportunities via exposure to venture capitalists and investors. Participants of the Awards Programme comprise members of the APICTA Network. Its 16 member-economies include Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

There are 15 categories in the APICTA 2006 competition, including the healthcare category. A total of 176 project teams from twelve countries participated in the competition which was held in Macau in November 2006. In the healthcare category, there were 10 participating teams and 3 were from Singapore.

Members of the Singapore team who had fought hard for the 3 gold and 1 merit awards

HPB won the award in the Healthcare category for SHAPE & IDEAS – our integrated patient-centric clinical management system for medical and dental services for students. HPB triumphed over 9 other participating teams in the Healthcare category to win this award. The 2 other awards were won by Stratech Systems Ltd for their intelligent Airfield/Runway Surveillance and FOD (Foreign Object and Debris) Detection System in the Research and Development category, and XID Technologies Pte Ltd for their Face Media Suite in the Media & Entertainment category. The merit award was won by Datamark Technologies for their StegMark Compact Flash Card in the Security category.

Representatives of HPB collecting the trophy. [L-R]: Mr Edmund Tan (IT Consultant, ITD, HPB), Ms Felicia Quek (IT Consultant, ITD, HPB), Ms Wong Wei Wei (Marketing Manager, Ecquaria Technologies), Mr Tou Veng Keong (Director of the Office for Telecommunication Regulations (DSRT), Macau), Mr Lam Pin Woon (CEO, HPB), Dr Eu Oy Chu (Deputy Director, School Dental Service, HPB), Mr Quah Cheng Hai (Project Director, Ecquaria Technologies) [Absent]: Dr Kwang Yoke Pin (Deputy Director, Student Health Centre, HPB)

With this victory, HPB also achieved another significant milestone as the first Singapore non-commercial organisation to win this prestigious APICTA award, doing Singapore and the industry proud.

A Word (or two) from our CEO

Our own CEO, Mr Lam Pin Woon, said, “HPB’s SHAPE and IDEAS is an integrated patient-centric clinical management system for our school medical and dental service. SHAPE and IDEAS manages about one million medical, vision and dental screening records and captures 300,000 immunisation records annually. It has radically improved both clinical care and customer service as well as our front desk services, resulting in 50% savings in patient registration time. The system has also reduced administrative burden which has translated to cost-savings of, 6,500 man-days per year from manual preparation of treatment charts, compilation of work returns and appointment scheduling.

Being the first Singapore non-commercial organisation to win this prestigious APICTA award for the Healthcare category is a significant milestone for HPB. It marks our commitment towards ‘One Patient, One Electronic Medical Record’, contributing to our national initiative of a lifelong medical record for all Singaporeans and improving our services to half a million students in about 400 primary & secondary schools and 1,200 pre-schools in Singapore.”

About SHAPE & IDEAS

SHAPE & IDEAS is a scalable and integrated patient-centric clinical management system for the medical and dental services provided by HPB. It serves as the main repository for school-based and clinic-based data. It is a large and complex service-oriented healthcare IT system, showcasing the best of breed real-time patient and case monitoring capabilities. SHAPE & IDEAS harnesses the power of Ecquaria Technologies’ flagship product, the Ecquaria Service-Oriented Platform (Ecquaria SOP) as the infrastructure that provides the business-friendly and process-oriented approach in the system

The system allows real-time accessing and capturing of student records by more than 600 clinicians and field staff of HPB who are situated islandwide in more than 200 locations. Access to the system is through school and government networks and for some, through 3G wireless network. The system is also plugged into the national Electronic Medical Records Exchange (EMRX), to enable seamless sharing of clinic attendance information with healthcare providers in the public healthcare sector during patient visits.

The heart of the system is the ability to intelligently trigger off appropriate dedicated clinical care plans and workflows based on the Reason for Referral. The use of structured care plans, odontogram charting, treatment planning and treatment execution have facilitated data capture and provides a useful guided clinical approach to the management of the patient with the aim of enhancing clinical standards and quality of care for the patient. The design of these care plans and odontograms also facilitates the capture of structured data for analysis and research.

Real-time sharing of information among the various service stations, clinics and operatories, ready online retrieval of historical health information about students from the system, and an integrated appointment scheduling and queue management system have reduced dependencies on paper case records, improved waiting and consultation times and enhanced overall patient experience.