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| Extreme makeover
at AH |
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A Raffles Hotel wannabe.
The “other Botanic Gardens”. These “labels”
are what Alexandra Hospital (AH) is proud to wear. Find
out why as Chief Executive Officer Liak Teng Lit shares
about purposeful learning from the private sector and
changes that have transformed the hospital.
If you’ve been to AH in recent years, you would
have noticed that it has undergone radical change.
“Years ago, we were run down, dirty, cluttered,
full of spider webs, dust, cockroaches, rats, a hundred
over stray cats,” claimed Mr Liak.
Today, the hospital looks clean, friendly and inviting.
One visitor was even overheard commenting: “It looks
more like an arts house than a hospital!” What caused
the change?
Mr Liak said that a major factor was the results of a
patient satisfaction survey of all the public hospitals
conducted by the Ministry of Health in 1999. Results showed
that most people did not want to be admitted to AH. Of
those who went to AH, 39% said they would not recommend
the hospital to others.
To address this dire situation, AH staff swiftly introduced
changes throughout the hospital by adopting the best practices
of private sector leaders.
To enhance service levels, AH invited Singapore Quality
Award winner
Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore to share its expertise
sometime in mid-2000. The takeaway: In order to provide
good customer service, it is crucial to select the right
people.
Heeding this advice, AH began recruiting only positive
and passionate people with the right attitude and good
people skills.
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| Everyone at AH
is encouraged to innovate. The dojo room is
where most kaizens a.k.a. improvement
projects are discussed and planned. |
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In enhancing the hospital’s environment, AH staff
saw potential in the old hospital buildings and invited
Raffles Hotel to share its experience of turning the old,
run-down Raffles Hotel into a world-renowned deluxe hotel.
Excited and inspired by the sharing session, they got
together to spruce up the hospital.
At the same time, another group of staff took the initiative
to plant canna seedlings at the hospital entrance. Within
three months, the flowers bloomed, raising everyone’s
spirits.
Subsequently, the staff were inspired to turn the bare
grounds of the hospital into a lush, green den like Botanic
Gardens. Together with volunteers, more
and more AH staff got into gardening, and in time, the
whole place took on a new look.
AH’s change was not merely cosmetic. The staff were
equally serious about improving patient care. They saw
AH as a fertile ground for trying a new service model
— lifelong, anticipatory care. Simply put, they
did not want to focus only on treating the sick but to
take steps to prevent people from falling ill in the
first place.
As a result of this total change in the concept of patient
care, widespread changes were introduced to AH’s
healthcare system.
At AH, everyone is encouraged to work on kaizens
or small improvement projects as well as to propose breakthrough
ideas that can lead to
radical change.
The guidelines: All innovations must make it better, faster,
cheaper or safer for patients to be diagnosed, treated
or given medical advice.
AH also tapped on the expertise of other successful private
companies. For example, to start a call centre, AH sought
help from Citibank. By visiting the Toyota Bodycare Centre
in Singapore and manufacturing plant in Japan, AH staff
were inspired to continually improve work processes. And
staff who visited Ikea were impressed by its service philosophy
and company culture.
At the end of the day, it is the patient who is the best
judge of AH’s transformation. Mr Liak said that
while more compliments have been coming in, he wants patients
to “tell us the bad news”.
In fact, those who make complaints are invited to a special
lunch where AH staff are all ears to hear them out. The
end result — more changes that lead to even more
improvements to AH.
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by Challenge
Editorial Team
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