Majority willing to replace face-to-face doctor
visit with digitally enabled “virtual” visit
SINGAPORE--(BUSINESS
WIRE)--Consumers in Singapore are ready to accept self-directed healthcare
driven by digital technologies, with more than half of them willing to use
virtual-care technologies as a replacement for a face-to-face healthcare visit,
according to a new report by Accenture
The
report, titled Innovation-Powered Healthcare in Asia Pacific, is based on a
three-country survey of 2,250 citizens – 750 each in Australia, Japan and
Singapore. According to the report, 54 per cent of Singaporean consumers said
they would forego a face-to-face visit with a physician in lieu of a virtual
visit if that would enable them to be seen sooner.
The
survey also found that more than three-quarters (78 per cent) of respondents in
Singapore said they trust themselves to take charge of their own health, and
nearly the same number (74 per cent) said they want more options for
self-managing their care. For example, four in five Singaporean respondents (80
per cent) said they would use a virtual assistant – a solution that draws on
advances in artificial intelligence to help a consumer manage more of their
healthcare themselves. A virtual assistant could, among other things, identify
the out-of-pocket costs for a treatment, help find the right treatment option,
or help manage an appointment or referral.
The
findings show signs of a sizable gulf between patient expectations in Singapore
and the health services they received: only one-fifth (19 per cent) of
respondents in Singapore said they were ‘very satisfied’ with their quality of
care, and even fewer (14 per cent) said they were ‘very satisfied’ with the
convenience of services.
The
report also notes that consumers in Singapore are most willing to adopt
digitally enabled changes to the healthcare system that can improve: the time
spent in waiting rooms (cited by 63 per cent of respondents) and the time it
takes to get an appointment (cited by 44 per cent).
“Demand
for self-service technology is helping Singapore become a breeding ground for
health technology start-ups and government-funded initiatives,” said Julian
Sham, M.D., who leads Accenture’s health practice in Singapore. “Integrating
self-service technology into the existing system will further enable patients
to take charge of their health and interact with the system on their own terms.
By implementing digital technologies more broadly, the health industry will be
able to augment human labour, personalise care and free-up time for clinicians
to focus on where they’re needed most. That’s the real innovation that digital
technologies can provide.”
Methodology
Accenture
commissioned a survey of 2,250 consumers (aged 18+) in Australia, Japan and
Singapore – 750 from each country – to understand their attitudes toward their
health system and healthcare technologies. The online survey was fielded by Longitude
Research, on behalf of Accenture, between January and February 2016, with the
sample evenly distributed across age groups, gender and income brackets. Each
respondent self-reported having been treated by a health provider at least once
over each of the past three years.
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