Saving on healthcare costs – Staying lean during tough times

Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) taking on a crucial role

HR practitioners will agree synonymously about their ongoing efforts and challenges in successfully retaining employees and sustaining a healthy, motivated and productive workforce. This can be a greater challenge when there is also a need to keep operational resources lean and medical expenditures low. Coupled with Singapore’s rapidly ageing workforce, deteriorating employee health can cause a negative impact on the business and economic scales, if not promptly addressed or effectively managed. Hence HR needs to continuously engage with major stakeholders and strive to achieve the targeted organisational outcomes.

A recent report by the National Tripartite Committee on Workplace Health revealed three out of five adult Singapore residents work. Prudent HR practitioners would synergise with the Health Promotion Board (HPB) and World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendation that the workplace is an ideal avenue to support health promotion amongst employees and their families.

Endorsed by HPB, the Workplace Health Promotion Programme (WHP) advocates the adoption of healthy practices at the workplaces to improve productivity and efficiency of employees and also to enhance the work environment and culture.

HMI-Institute of Health Sciences is proud to have certified WHP Consultants who can actively partner with companies to start and improve their own WHP programmes.

Preventive Health Screening – Across the Border

Besides making the workplace a health-friendly space, HR practitioners will also agree on the importance of preventive health screenings in ensuring healthy and productive employees. Health screening is essential for the early detection of diseases that can cause long term disability or death. By investing in health screening for their employees, companies also get to save on potentially larger healthcare costs when major illnesses strikes without warning. Hence, companies are now seeking quality health screening packages with the value-add of convenience and comfort for their employees.

A growing number of companies are also seeking health screening services across the border, in Malaysia. According to a Frost and Sullivan report, Malaysia is expected to show an increase of 15% CAGR in the number of foreign patients visiting the country from 2010 to 2012. Due to its quality of healthcare and close proximity to Singapore, HMI has also seen an increase in the number of Singaporeans seeking medical treatment in HMI’s Regency Specialist Hospital (Regency) in Johor, which is just an hour’s drive away from Singapore. Another HMI facility, the Mahkota Medical Centre (Mahkota) in Malacca, is just a three-hour drive from Singapore. Singaporeans can use their Medisave in both HMI hospitals.

For quality health screening at affordable rates, companies can now benefit from HMI’s popular health screening and leisure day trips to Regency Specialist Hospital in Johor. Participants are ferried to their morning health screening at Regency, followed by a complimentary healthy breakfast in the hospital. They then proceed to the local JUSCO mega-mall for shopping or are free to explore other leisure activities such as horseback riding or a spa session in the afternoon. Not only do employees get to have their health checked, they also get to interact and bond with their colleagues during the day trip!

From WHP programmes to cross-border health screenings, HR practitioners today can choose from a variety of options that can help them save on healthcare costs as well as keep employees healthy and happy at the same time.

Contributed by:

Chin Wei Jia

General Manager of Health Management International (HMI) Ltd.