Raffles Medical Group first in Asia to join Mayo Clinic Care Network

Singapore

INTEGRATED private healthcare provider Raffles Medical Group (RMG) will join the United States-based Mayo Clinic Care Network, the group announced on Wednesday.

RMG will be the first in Asia to join the network, and the services provided will be available only at its Singapore general practitioner clinics, specialist outpatient clinics and hospital, Donald Poon, general manager of Raffles Hospital, said.

RMG also operates in and manages affiliate clinics and laboratories in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The Care Network, a collaboration between the non-profit Mayo Clinic and autonomous healthcare providers, currently has 32 members in 18 US states, Mexico and Puerto Rico. It allows members to remotely access resources from the medical practice and research group, headquartered in Rochester, Minnesota.

"Historically, we (Mayo Clinic) have done telehealth consultations with organisations for many years, but we didn't have it organised into a structured framework like we do for the Care Network," David Hayes, medical director for the network, said.

Telehealth refers to health-related services and information delivered by telecommunications technologies, which can allow a patient to receive care or treatment from a physician in a different country.

Dr Hayes added that before the network was launched in 2011, collaborations were only for consultations and did not include other "tools and services" now available through it.

"As a member of the Care Network, Raffles will have access to tools that . . . we use within our own system," he said.

Such tools include: electronic consultations with Mayo specialists, access to an online information system of Mayo-vetted clinical reference materials and the sharing of expertise in quality management within the member organisation.

RMG will also be able to utilise "eTumor Board Conferences", which will allow the group to present and discuss cancer cases with a panel of specialists from both Mayo and other network members.

"The parallel between Raffles Medical Group and Mayo Clinic is almost uncanny," Dr Poon said.

He noted that both began as modest clinical practices founded in the formative years of their respective countries, with the clinic's founder opening the practice shortly after the American Civil War, and the group's founders - Loo Choon Yong and Alfred Loh - opening their first medical facilities within the first decade of Singapore's independence.

Dr Hayes said: "We have been impressed by the cultural alignment of our two institutions . . . and we're very proud of our shared purpose: to bring the highest quality patient care to this region."

Both agreed that while Mayo Clinic's status as a non-profit organisation and RMG's as a publicly listed entity were not analogous, the collaboration would not affect their respective operations.

"The more we got to know Raffles, the more we realised that yes, we're different in terms of our financial approach to things . . . but otherwise (we're) similar in every other way, so I don't think that will change the way either of us operate," Dr Hayes said.

This difference should not pose any problem as a current member of the Care Network, Medica Sur in Mexico City, is also a publicly traded company, he continued.

Dr Poon added that for patients, this partnership would not result in "any significant extra cost".

Raffles Medical shares eased eight cents to S$4.69.