陳有明(裕廊集選區議員)醫生詢問衛生部長：

(a) 是否已研究公眾對整合公共醫療叢集應用的需求?

(b) 現有平臺（尤其對跨叢集就醫患者）是否存在改進空間?

普傑立醫生(衛生部高階政務部長，代表衛生部長）：議長先生，請允許我合併答覆今日議程第1、2項質詢，並涵蓋黃玲玲議員後續會議提交的相關問題。

議長：請繼續。

普傑立醫生(衛生部高階政務部長，代表衛生部長）：感謝議長。我邀請黃玲玲議員必要時提出補充質詢，若問題已獲解答，後續質詢或可撤回。

HealthHub作為國家健康應用程式和入口網站，已實現與三大公共醫療叢集的互動，其核心功能包括跨叢集預約掛號。該功能已向自願參與的Health SG診所開放，但強制要求私營診所接入尚不適宜。私營診所雖受嚴格監管，仍屬市場化運營。

目前未收到跨叢集預約困難的反饋，可能因公眾亦習慣使用機構熱線等其他渠道。

HealthHub還提供化驗報告、健康篩查結果、用藥記錄及CHAS餘額查詢功能，其中藥物續方僅限公共醫療機構使用。

我們不時會收到一些建議，要求將群組應用程式整合到HealthHub中。叢集應用程式確實有其作用，因為它們具有為其特定設施和服務定製的功能。這些應用程式還能讓各醫院群在使用者互動功能上進行創新，幫助它們更好地與所服務的病人建立聯絡並滿足他們的獨特需求。另一方面，建立統一的HealthHub也有好處。我們將繼續探討這個問題。

議長：黃玲玲議員。

黃玲玲（宏茂橋集選區議員）：感謝答覆。我有兩個補充問題。議長先生，我認為自己是一個相當精明的HealthHub使用者，但即使我在綜合診所和醫院使用HealthHub，特別是當我幫助我的父母時，我實際上需要我在HealthHub註冊的全科醫生的幫助，在導航方面，我發現在HealthHub主頁上實際上有一個橫幅，上面寫著HealthHub，點選後會顯示類似 “檢視健康計劃 ”的內容。正是透過這個連結，你可以進入你在Health SG下注冊的全科醫生診所進行預約，而不是大多數病人使用健康匯網進行預約的 “預約 ”的正常快速連結。

普傑立醫生(衛生部高階政務部長，代表衛生部長）：感謝建議。我們會考慮並仔細研究這兩項建議。事實上，我們一直在研究如何改進數字產品的使用者介面和使用者體驗。

陳有明醫生（裕廊集選區議員）：議長先生，首先我要宣告，我在一家公共醫療機構工作，但我是以議員的身份，根據我從金文泰居民那裡聽到的情況，提出這個反饋意見。

1、作為主管政府科技局的部長，請問高階政務部長，我們可以從 GovTech 的經驗中汲取哪些教訓，以改善衛生部應用程式和醫療保健叢集應用程式的使用者體驗？例如，GovTech 公司擁有大量能幹的員工，其中一些人甚至擁有在谷歌等大型國際科技公司工作的經驗。

2，我還想請問高階政務部長，衛生部是否研究過借鑑 GovTech 的經驗和 GovTech 的易用性，開發一個更加綜合的應用程式？因為有居民告訴我，LifeSG，尤其是 Parking.sg 等應用程式要比醫院叢集應用程式，甚至是 HealthHub 容易使用得多。因此，我能否進一步詢問高階政務部長？是否對HealthHub和醫院應用程式進行了大量的使用者介面測試，是否對包括老年人和天生不懂技術的人在內的人群進行了使用者介面測試？總之，議長先生，要透過我們人民的眼睛，而不僅僅是工程師和編碼員的眼睛來看待問題。

普傑立醫生(衛生部高階政務部長，代表衛生部長）感謝陳醫生的回應和建議。我們確實認識到，隨著人口老齡化，越來越多的人有長期的健康問題，並與臨床醫療服務提供者有多次接觸，他們可能需要多種護理環境來滿足他們的醫療保健需求。目前，這可能意味著他們需要使用不同的應用程式來管理自己和家人的跨機構醫療交易。

Ms Ng Ling Ling asked the Minister for Health (a) when will the national digital health app HealthHub extend its current function of appointments management across all three public healthcare clusters to include Healthier SG general practitioner (GP) clinics; and (b) whether the rest of the current functions on HealthHub, such as laboratory report, medical refill, health screening and CHAS balance, can be extended to these GP clinics.

Dr Tan Wu Meng asked the Minister for Health (a) whether the Ministry has studied public feedback requesting for a single fully consolidated public sector app for patients to transact with the public healthcare clusters; and (b) whether there is room for improvement in existing platforms, especially for patients receiving care across multiple healthcare clusters.

The Senior Minister of State for Health (Dr Janil Puthucheary) (for the Minister for Health): Mr Speaker, may I have your permission to answer Question Nos 1 and 2 in today’s Order Paper?

My response will also cover the matters raised in the question by Ms Ng Ling Ling1 which is scheduled for a subsequent Sitting.

Mr Speaker: Please proceed.

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Thank you, Sir. I invite Ms Ng to seek clarifications, if need be. If the question has been addressed, it may not be necessary for the Member to proceed with the Question for a future Sitting.

Sir, HealthHub is our national health app and web portal which allows the public to interact with all three public healthcare clusters. One of its key functions is appointment booking. Through HealthHub, users can schedule cross-cluster appointments with the public healthcare institutions. This feature is also extended to Healthier SG general practitioner (GP) clinics that have opted to participate in the functions of this app. At this stage, we do not think it is appropriate to compel all private GPs to come onto the app. They are private clinics and they are operating within a market, albeit one that is heavily regulated.  

We have not received much feedback on the difficulties in making cross-cluster medical appointments. This may be because the public are also familiar with alternative booking channels, such as the call centres of the institutions. 

HealthHub also provides a range of other services to patients such as viewing laboratory reports, health screening results, prescription records and Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS) balances. These functions are also extended to participating GP clinics, except the medication refills which only apply to the public healthcare institutions. 

From time to time, we will receive suggestions to consolidate the cluster apps under HealthHub. The cluster apps do serve a purpose, in having features customised to their particular facilities and services. These apps also allow the clusters to innovate on user-interaction features, helping them to better connect with and address the unique needs of the patients they serve. On the other hand, there are also advantages to having a consolidated HealthHub. This is an issue that we will continue to explore.

Mr Speaker: Ms Ng Ling Ling.

Ms Ng Ling Ling (Ang Mo Kio): Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Senior Minister of State for the reply. I have two supplementary questions. Sir, I would consider myself quite a savvy HealthHub user, but even with my use of it for the polyclinics and the hospitals especially when I help my parents, I actually needed some help from my GP that I enrolled onto Healthier SG with, on the navigation to find that there is actually a banner on the HealthHub homepage that says "Healthier SG" and the click-on says something like "View Health Plan". It is through that link that you can go in and make appointments with the GP clinic that you have enrolled with under Healthier SG, instead of the normal quick link to "Appointments" that most patients would have used HealthHub to make appointments.

My first question is: can the Ministry of Health (MOH) consider using the quick link "Appointment" button that a lot of people are very familiar with if they had been using HealthHub to also make appointments with GP clinics that Singaporeans had enrolled with under Healthier SG?

My second question is: I think I have a very good GP who goes over and above the extra mile, even when his clinic is very crowded, to explain to me when I ask questions. That took him an extra two to three minutes. I think some of these other GPs are really doing a good job trying to support Healthier SG which MOH is promoting. Will MOH recognise and give some award to encourage these GPs and encourage what we want to see other GPs doing, as we extend Healthier SG in the coming years?

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Sir, I thank Ms Ng for her two suggestions. We will consider both and look at them closely. Indeed, we are always looking to see how we can improve the user interface and user experience of our digital products.

I am glad that she has found a GP that she trusts and is providing her with quality, in-depth care. I think we do need to find ways to reognise and incentivise this type of behaviour from the family physicians that look after all of us.

Mr Speaker: Dr Tan.

Dr Tan Wu Meng (Jurong): Mr Speaker, I want to start by declaring that I work at a public healthcare institution, but I raise this feedback in my Member of Parliament capacity, based on what I have heard from my Clementi residents.

Sir, I have got two follow-up questions for the Senior Minister of State. Firstly, the Senior Minister of State also happens to be the Minister-in-charge of the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech). Can I ask the Senior Minister of State what lessons can we learn from drawing on GovTech's experience to improve the user experience of MOH's apps and the healthcare cluster apps? For example, GovTech has a deep pool of capable staff, some who have even got experience at major international tech firms such as Google.

Secondly, can I also ask the Senior Minister of State whether MOH has studied having a much more consolidated app, drawing on GovTech experience and GovTech's ease of use? Because I have residents who tell me that apps such as LifeSG and in particular, Parking.sg, are much, much easier to use than the hospital clusters apps, or even HealthHub. So, can I ask the Senior Minister of State along those lines further? Is there a lot of user interface testing done for HealthHub and the hospital apps, and is that user interface testing applied to populations, including the elderly and people who may not be naturally tech savvy? In short, Mr Speaker, seeing through the eyes of our people and not just the eyes of the engineers and coders.

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Sir, I thank Dr Tan for his feedback and suggestions. We do recognise that as our population ages, as we have a growing number of people who have long-term health problems and multiple contacts with clinical providers, they may need multiple care settings to address their healthcare needs. And currently, that may mean navigating different apps to manage medical transactions across institutions for themselves and their family members. 

So, we are looking at ways and how we can improve our digital services. We are indeed learning from the experience across the rest of the digitalisation in the public sector that GovTech and others have been heavily involved in. The teams that are working with the healthcare service providers – we have the Synapxe digital team, we also have got the GovTech teams, as well as private vendors. So, there is a significant amount of experience from the public sector and the private sector, drawing on the lessons of other care and business process transformation and applying that to what happens within the healthcare ecosystem.

Dr Tan made a point about the consolidation of the apps and the user interface. These are, in a way, two distinct issues. The matter of how we provide the digital infrastructure for the clusters to ride on and provide their individual apps at the moment is something that we are studying, as to whether or not there is a need to then consolidate and streamline.

This is distinct from the issue of the user interface and the user experience that he mentioned. We do indeed test with a variety of users from all backgrounds. We do indeed want to make sure that the digital services that we offer are accessible to the population and easy to use, so that they can engage in these transactions.

I take his feedback and we will continue to try our best. And if there are specific suggestions about buttons, banners, transactions, workflows, I would encourage him and other Members to provide us the information and we will certainly find a way to optimise the experience for all our users.

Note(s) to Question No(s) 1-2:

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