[3 August 2010]
University and Hospital Pledge to Exchange Ideas, Expertise and Knowledge
Singapore Management University and Alexandra Health ink MOU for academic partnership
Singapore – Alexandra Health and the School of Information Systems (SIS) at the Singapore Management University (SMU) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a three-year partnership to establish a joint service innovation program. Under this MOU, students, staff and faculty of SMU's School of Information Systems (SIS) will work with professionals from Alexandra Health on a series of innovation programs to further enhance the customer experience at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH).
The program, T-Lab, will enable teams from both sides to come together to work on and implement service delivery ideas. The letter "T" stands for transformation. It also represents the "T-shaped" skills that are important in today's service sector professionals. “T-shaped” individuals have the required vertical depth in their area of expertise and the horizontal breadth to effectively collaborate with others from different backgrounds. The T-Lab provides opportunities for SMU participants to learn about the management aspects of transforming healthcare service delivery while applying information systems solutions. Students will be able to see how a "T-shaped" skill profile can enable them to succeed as professionals once they graduate and enter the workforce.
Several T-Lab projects have been initiated since May 2010. In the first project, the joint Alexandra Health-SMU team is working on streamlining and simplifying the patient discharge process. I n the second T-Lab project, the team is creating better ways to track a patient's “journey” through any of KTPH's Specialist Outpatient Clinics (SOC). The new “journey tracking” process and supporting information system have the potential to reduce waiting time at SOCs. In the third project, the T-Lab t eam is focusing on understanding the lifestyle habits of people living in nearby communities. The team will create an information management system for collecting and analysing data from lifestyle habit surveys, and using the information to plan health and wellbeing outreach efforts.
The MOU also provides for two-way knowledge and know-how exchanges. For example, four Alexandra Health senior managers in the Operations, Service Delivery and Technology areas have been appointed as adjunct practice faculty at SMU SIS. They will contribute to the school's curriculum and teach undergraduate and postgraduate courses. SMU students will be able to tap the adjunct faculty's extensive experience for insights into healthcare operations and service delivery improvement.
At the same time, Alexandra Health will collaborate with SMU SIS faculty in areas such as business data analytics, intelligent systems for planning, scheduling and decision support, and information security and privacy. Through the T-Lab, Alexandra Health will also have closer interaction with staff of the Institute of Service Excellence at SMU (ISES), and tap on their knowledge of benchmarking of service delivery and customer satisfaction in Singapore.
“Service innovation and transformation are top priorities for Alexandra Health as we make the transition from being a single hospital to a healthcare cluster serving northern Singapore. We see synergies in partnering with SMU. We like their approach to learning, research, projects and industry engagement and their ability to bring together practical aspects with classroom theory. Our collaboration will result in productive exchange of ideas, information and expertise,” said Mr Lau Wing Chew, Chief Transformation Officer, Alexandra Health.
“This new T-Lab effort with Alexandra Health exemplifies our approach to learning enhancement and to community engagement,” said Prof Steven Miller, Dean of SMU's School of Information Systems and a Professor of Information Systems (Practice). He added, “The new Khoo Teck Puat Hospital now becomes part of the ‘learning labs' we make available to our students. Partnering with Alexandra Health gives our School yet another rich, real-world way to bring to life our class-room content and assignments about complex business processes, user and customer needs, data management, collaboration, information systems solutions, and business outcomes improvement. We think the new Alexandra Health – SMU T-Lab is such an important initiative since each partner is helping the other with "learning-to-learn.”
“This collaboration provides unique and in-depth opportunities for members of the SMU community to participate in a hands-on way to improve service delivery processes in healthcare. For the SMU participants, we gain first-hand knowledge about healthcare operations, information management and service delivery than by working on projects through the T-Lab. At the same time, Alexandra Health will gain access to the deep experience that SMU SIS has accumulated over the past five years with running service innovation pilot projects in the context of real-world, high pressure business and commercial settings,” said Mrs Koh Lian Chee, T-Lab Programme Manager, School of Information Systems, SMU.
About Alexandra Health
Alexandra Health offers multi-disciplinary and holistic care for the patient's total well-being. Established on 1 April 2008, Alexandra Health is a new healthcare cluster that currently comprises the 550-bed general and acute care Khoo Teck Puat Hospital as well as Jurong Medical Centre. This is part of exciting plans to develop Alexandra Health into an integrated healthcare system to serve the community in the north. Future plans for the cluster include a new community hospital and a medical centre. To find out more about Alexandra Health and Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, visit www.ktph.com.sg.
About SMU's School of Information Systems
The SMU School of Information Systems (SIS) is globally recognized for its educational and research initiatives that integrate deep Information Technology capabilities with business settings and management issues. Launched in 2003 with a strategic partnership with Carnegie Mellon University that continues to this day, SIS has nearly 1000 students across its Bachelor's, Master's and PhD programmes. The SIS BSc. (Information Systems Management) programme produces bachelors graduates who are hybrid IT professionals with a well developed sense of business acumen, and with deep skills required to define, design, and deliver innovative Information Technology solutions in business and organizational settings. The SIS BSc (ISM) students and graduates intern and work in every sector of the economy, in a wide range of job roles. BSc (ISM) alumni are working as Software and IT technology specialists, systems and solution integrators, technology service account managers, project managers, consultants, as IT-savvy business and management professionals, and also as self-employed entrepreneurs. At the postgraduate level, the School has pioneered a professional Master of IT in Business. The MITB (Financial Services) programme has quickly established itself as a global leader in post-graduate university professional training for Technology, Project and Operations professionals in the banking industry. The MITB (Service Sector) programme is pioneering a new approach to educating Technology & Operations Professionals in Service Industries to harness the capabilities of real time analytics for improving customer and operational performance. See www.sis.smu.edu.sg