Alliance Healthcare Group secures a grant to develop Singapore’s first web-based health risk assessment tool for 27 major medical conditions.
15 years ago, it was a simple family clinic serving an HDB neighbourhood. Today, Alliance Healthcare Group provides diversified medical services to some 140,000 families and corporations in Singapore, and it manages this huge customer base through the innovative use of technology.
For example, 2 years ago, the company introduced My HealthScannerTM, Singapore’s first online health risk assessment tool that can determine a person’s susceptibility to 27 major diseases. It developed the tool with funding support from SPRING Singapore.
Daring To Dream
The idea for such a tool came to Alliance Healthcare Group’s co-founders Barry Thng and Goh Tiong Jin while attending to their patients.
“As doctors and family physicians, we saw the disastrous impact of medical catastrophes on both our patients and their families. The sad thing was that many of these diseases could be prevented. It then occurred to us that shouldn’t we also be doing something to help more people take charge of their health?”
With the help of his colleagues and a technology firm, Barry and Tiong Jin began to work on a prototype for a web-based health screening tool. This involved designing an IT interface to support the system, and reading through hundreds of medical journals to identify and gather as much information as possible on major health risks. It was hard work, but Barry and his colleagues were convinced their concept was sound.
“I guess that we are all dreamers – we actually dared to dream that our idea would work,” Barry said. “Passion and commitment were what carried us through. We had to juggle our daily duties and doing the research work required for the project. I am indebted to my colleagues, who toiled through many long nights with me.”
Roping In Government Support
Barry learnt about the Technology Innovation Programme (TIP) in November 2006. Administered by SPRING Singapore, TIP provides businesses with grants to develop or improve their products, processes or business models.
To apply for TIP, Barry and his team drew up a business proposal that clearly outlined the innovative features and value-added benefits their project would have for the local healthcare sector.
“We knew that we had to strike a balance between being accurate and cost-effective. Besides showing that our product is the first in Singapore to focus on detecting health risks at the pre-disease stage, we designed it to be scalable to lower costs and thus encourage companies to send their workers for health screening.”
Just 2 months after he submitted his application, Barry’s proposal was approved. He obtained a grant that covered his manpower expenses, consultancy and developmental costs.
With the project eventually taking 15 months to implement, Barry was grateful for the support given by SPRING Singapore. He said: “We are not a big company, so the grant certainly came in handy to help us develop our prototype into a full-fledged programme. It also enabled us to accelerate our plans to develop other innovative tools that raise the standards of healthcare in Singapore.”
To date, some 5,000 employees from organisations like the Housing and Development Board of Singapore (HDB), Federal Express, Schering Plough and Cathay Organisation have undergone health checks using the system, which also allows users to store and retrieve personal medical data for comparison purposes.
Continuing To Break New Ground
Barely a year after the launch of My HealthScannerTM, Alliance Healthcare Group has embarked on a new technology project to improve the management of chronic diseases.
Barry said, “Like My HealthScannerTM, this programme will be the first of its kind in Singapore. With this system, we will be able to track the clinical progress for patients suffering chronic ailments to provide full accountability to participating patients and companies.”
With healthcare needs expected to intensify in the near future, the company expects its innovative healthcare tools will lead the way in providing better integrated healthcare services in Singapore.
How Alliance Healthcare Group Secured Funding
- Submitted a well-prepared business proposal clearly explaining the innovative and scalable features of the product, project concept, implementation schedule and breakdown of estimated costs.
- Outlined clearly how the new product would add value to the private healthcare industry.
- Demonstrated significant innovation in developing a new product concept to create a new market niche.
|
How TIP Helped
- Subsidised the project’s manpower, consultancy and development costs.
- Enabled Alliance Healthcare Group to accelerate its plans to develop other innovative healthcare tools.
|
