PRESSURE POINTS FOR HOSPITALS
The largest portion of Singapore’s healthcare costs, at 60 per cent, is the cost of manpower.
And a shortage of manpower is pushing up wages, said Wong Soo Min, the group chief financial officer of the National University Health System, which manages NUH, AH, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital and National University Polyclinics, among other healthcare institutions.
Drugs, consumables and information technology-related costs account for the remaining 40 per cent of healthcare costs. “With inflation as well as higher logistics and supply chain costs, we do see higher drug costs,” she added.
While these higher operating expenses are putting pressure on hospitals, healthcare administrators are looking at ways to proactively manage costs.
One of the things they are doing is “switching from branded to generic drugs, with the same efficacy”, said Wong.
She cited two examples — cholesterol and hypertension drugs — where the switch has led to cost savings of about 20 per cent. “And this gets translated into the price that the patient pays,” she added.
Technology offers another set of solutions when it comes to manpower efficiency. For example, AH is piloting smart wards with digital wearables for patients and beds equipped with contactless sensors to monitor the patients.
