Singapore Health Ministry on social media

Sunday, 12 February 2012

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By Jianggan Li | 29 March 2010

“Welcome to Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan’s Facebook page. My mission is to help Singaporeans live a long and healthy life and to make quality healthcare.” This is the introduction line visitors to the “Ministry of Health” Facebook profile will find.

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Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) has become a good example of how new media can be leveraged to engage with citizens, particularly on issues related to healthcare policy making. The Minister blogs personally about healthcare issues of topical interest, as well as challenges in policy making.

“Our engagement in new media is certainly not a knee-jerk reaction to a fad,” asserts Karen Tan, Director of Communications, MOH. “We view new media communication tools as an integral part of our communications strategy and are committed to it on a long-term basis.”

“Increasingly, we have realised that the expectation of the public has changed and are expecting more transparency and even some form of ownership in formulating policies,” Tan explains. “We like to actively engage the public to feedback and discuss healthcare policies as there is no monopoly of ideas within MOH.”

Visitors to the Minister’s blog are encouraged to comment on the Facebook page. In the recent annual Health Budget Discussion, the Ministry has received more than 200 comments from the online community.

“From the depth and knowledge of the discussion, some of the netizens might be from the healthcare sectors and this also provides a good mixture of views from the industry experts and the public,” Tan says, pointing out that the comments were constructive and useful.

Its Facebook page currently has 2751 fans; and the Minister’s blog has successfully attracted 20,000 unique visitors since its launch in mid-September. The blog has also attracted the mainstream media in the country, which reported on several stories that the Minister blogged about.

“New media tools enable us to reach out directly to Singaporeans who are interested to engage on a deeper level on healthcare issues,” Tan says. “At the same time, it allows us to clarify our thinking-process to the public, explain policy rationale in a more personal and informal manner to the public.”

“This openness and two-way communications will hopefully help us fine-tune our policy formulation, especially in terms of ground implementation as well,” she adds.

Encouraged by the positive responsive, Tan also points out a few insignts drawn from the Ministry’s new media experience. First is the commitment from leadership and management, which Tan says is critical. In fact, the Minister blogging personally contributes greatly to such success.

Tan also emphasises the important of having a new style of writing for blogs and Facebook pages: “We must avoid officious statements and replies to sustain the attention of our ‘fans’.”

Another key learning point is ‘be daring to experiment’, adds Tan, who says that in the blogosphere engaging works out much better than confronting. People can be persuaded if the government gives good reasons.

“For instance, the sharing of dilemmas in policy making can go a long way in explaining why things are the way they do,” Tan explains.

“We are still learning in this journey to better engage the public in this online sphere,” she concludes.

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2 Comments

On 31 March 2010 Donaldson Tan wrote:

The problem here is such online engagement does not accommodate the spontaneity of the internet.

For starters, the facebook and MOH blog administrators hold the key to initiate conversation on topics. These administrators basically decide what topic to discuss and what topic to avoid.

Ideally, websites such as MOH facebook and MOH blog can host informal debates between the public and private sector with regards to public policy topics which affect a wide range of stakeholders.