Big win for Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital (MNH) with awards in customer and clinical services

It was lauded with the Customer Service Initiative of the Year and the Clinical Service Initiative of the Year at the recently held Healthcare Asia Awards.

Whilst relatively young in the local healthcare sector, MNH has been granted two major awards in the recently concluded Healthcare Asia Awards. It received the Customer Service Initiative of the Year for improving patient centricity and speed of hospital admission as well as the Clinical Service Initiative of the Year for developments in its Radiation Oncology Care.

This year, with its theme of Recognizing Trailblazing Initiatives in the Healthcare Sector, the awards programme aims to honour hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare providers that have risen above the challenges and made a remarkable impact on their patients, especially so amidst the massive disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For its first award, MNH was lauded for providing more personalised service to patients. The hospital challenged itself to find ways to reduce wait time with the objective to improve patient experience. MNH identified that healthcare facilities face increasing patient volume which translates to longer wait times for admission, shortage of ready rooms and longer discharge processing times. Regardless, patient expectations continue to rise. It remains a challenge to provide a better patient experience amidst manpower constraints in the current employment market.

MNH embarked on the journey seeking to improve the admission and discharge experience through dedicated attention by hospital staff, allowing patients to have greater ease navigating their hospital journey. In turn, staff have greater ownership at work whilst caring for patients at a more intimate level. They feel more confident with the upskilling opportunities given alongside higher responsibilities, as part of the direct patient care team which fosters gainful and meaningful employment. Cross-training also makes them more capable to be deployed across various functions, hence greatly optimising manpower resources.

The solution required a new hybrid team setup which consisted of staff who are cross-trained in both Front Office and Business Office functions. These teams are then assigned to perform administrative care and management for the patients of the respective dedicated wards from patients’ point of entry to the hospital till discharge. This new set-up and workflow reduced motion waste by 40% and translated to a more personalised experience with dedicated attention to patients and undertaking value-added tasks.

The second award received by MNH is a recognition of the hospital’s efforts to strengthen its radiation oncology offerings for cancer patients in Singapore and the region.

About 8 years ago, MNH launched its Radiation Oncology centre with both the Truebeam and Gamma Knife radiation therapy systems installed under one roof. The hospital wanted to do more and embarked on feasibility studies for a Proton Therapy system within its facility. The completion of the Mount Elizabeth Proton Therapy Centre in October 2022 marked a significant milestone in developing MNH to be a private healthcare centre of excellence for radiation oncology care in the region.

What makes it remarkable is that there are no other similar centres or hospitals in the region that offer such a combination of radiotherapy facilities on one site, particularly the Truebeam STX Linear Accelerator (Linac) system, Gamma Knife, and Proton Therapy.

Each of these technologies has varying capabilities and is used to treat different kinds of cancer. This allows MNH to tailor treatments based on patients’ needs or circumstances.

The Radiation Oncology Centre saw double-digit growth in patient volumes yearly and was able to build a strong reputation for quality cancer care, both in Singapore and the region. With regional travel having resumed in 2023, the centre is well-positioned to offer a wider spectrum of radiation therapy treatment options to its patients.