Sunday, 12 February 2012
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Tax and Revenue Management: A government’s lifeblood
IT has provided the opportunities for governments to remodel the entire process of tax collection over the last decade. It is, however, a continuously evolving process and governments the world over need to constantly upgrade their tax systems to optimise their revenue workflows.
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A recent SAP study confirmed that those organisations which adopt best practices in the areas of scope and adoption, process standardisation, technology and customer governance, do perform better, and do so as their best practice maturity increases.
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The advent of social media has seen governments hopping onto the bandwagon in a bid to further engage citizens.
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Healthcare IT
Singapore’s healthcare IT journey: lessons learned
The head of IT for Singapore’s healthcare institutions has revealed the lessons she has learned in implementing new projects. Speaking at the FutureHealth Forum yesterday (9th May 2010), Dr Chong Yoke Sin, CEO of Integrated Health Information Systems, said that patient safety is the most powerful argument to get buy-in from clinicians.
“We are fortunate, here in Singapore, to have had strong clinician leadership in the adoption of new technology,” said Dr Chong. “But it took us a long time to get where we are. Making cost savings and productivity gains are, of course, essential to getting buy-in for a project. But it is when they [clinicians] see patient safety results that they will truly embrace new technology.”
Choosing the right approach is also critical, she said. “For phased projects, which are rolled out in stages, you have more time to steward the project but you must be clear to stakeholders that implementation takes longer too. For ‘big bang’ projects, communication with users is essential, and their expectations must be carefully managed.”
For this reason, a change management element must be woven into the project from the start, and the right people selected, she said. “The Chief Medical Information Officer should champion the project, but the clinical and business users should drive it, with a small group of three or four with an intimate knowledge of the institution workflows to steer it. These people are critical to the success of the project.”
Hospital CIOs must ensure that failing projects are ditched – and quickly, asserted Dr Chong. “While the benefits of an IT initiative should be demonstrably made in terms of patient safety and improvements in health to maintain the momentum of the health IT journey, you need to be bold enough to throw away a project that isn’t working.”
Striking the right balance between the needs of different healthcare organisations is also key, she said, adding that Enterprise Architecture should be used when choosing systems, which should be standardised to enable seamless integration.
Dr Chong also highlighted the big challenges facing Singapore’s healthcare sector. By 2030, Singapore will be – after Japan - the world’s ‘oldest’ country with 27.4 per cent of the population over the age of 65. Hong Kong will also be in the table of the world’s oldest countries, along with Germany and Italy.
“Life expectancy rises with increasing per capita total health expenditure. But there are diminishing returns,” she said. “The highest levels of per capita health expenditure are associated with only modest or no improvements in life expectancy. We can only do so much to prolong life.”
Some countries, she pointed out, have achieved high levels of life expectancy despite relatively lower per capita health expenditures. In Singapore, where US$1,150 is spent per person annually on healthcare, the average life expectancy is 73 years old. In the Netherlands, where US$4,200 is spent per person, life expectancy is the same.
Similarly, while life expectancy in both Thailand and the Philippines is 62 years old, Thailand spends more than double that of the Philippines on healthcare (US$136 per person compared to US$63).
“Healthcare for ageing populations is becoming increasingly important,” said Dr Chong. “We need to take a proactive approach to tackling chronic diseases, which will become more pronounced as time goes on.
“To do this, we should not be talking about healthcare IT, we need to be talking about health IT. People need information on how to lead healthier lives. All of us should be participating in the future of health.”
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