MOH reveals plan for mutual feedback system

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Singapore -

The Ministry of Health will implement a mutual feedback system as a part of the nation-wide shared electronic medical record.

Mr Yee Beh, a spokesman for the ministry announced this at the pilot lauch of the electronic medical record system (EMRS) at Southern Hope Hospital yesterday.

Under this system, doctors and patients may leave a feedback for each other after each clinical encounter. The feedback will be recorded on the electronic medical record, and will consist of a comment and a score. A doctor or patient will receive one point for a positive feedback, zero point for a neutral feedback, and minus-one point for a negative feedback. The current scores for the doctors will be posted at the MOH website and at the respective medical establishment the doctors are working at, while the scores for the patients will be available to the doctor on their electronic medical records.

"We got this idea from online auction systems. We believe this system will give greater transparency to the way our healthcare system functions, and allow doctors and patients to be more responsive to each other," said Mr Yee.

"Currently all medical centres have their own system of feedback for patients, but there isn't a single uniform system. By making this a centralised, standardised system, we allow feedback to be collected and interpreted more systematically and completely."

"Also, doctors do not currently have a way to communicate to each other regarding a patient's health-seeking behaviour. The implementation of a centralised EMRS allows them to give their input, and would facilitate better management of the patients."

"We give each party the chance to leave a score and a comment explaining why they left a positive, negative, or neutral score. This is more meaningful than a simple scoring system, and also allows other parties to have an insight on the clinical episode. As each doctor and patient is given the chance to leave a feedback for each clinical encounter, this will over time ensure that the feedback score is reflective of a pattern of behaviour, and not the result of a single good or bad encounter."

Mr Yee also explained that the system may also have wider application other than allowing doctors and patients to learn about each other.

"We are currently looking into incorporating the feedback score into the periodic performance review of our staff, and several insurance providers have expressed interest in using the score to classify clients into different risk groups for purpose of determining premium rates."