1 How has Lawrence Lim focused his staff on providing ‘best outcome, best experience’? The Singapore General Hospital (SGH) is the country’s largest acute tertiary care hospital. It has a total of 1,612 beds and 22 clinical departments providing a comprehensive range of medical services. The hospital employs around 5,500 staff, from clinical and research directors to hospital attendants. SGH is structured as a private limited company for flexibility of operations, but is a not-for-profit organisation owned by the Government of Singapore.

The hospital’s mission is to provide excellence in healthcare through cost-effective methods for the benefit of the patient, community and staff.

Lawrence Lim is the hospital’s chief executive officer and he explains how it delivers its mission:

The hospital has three ‘pillars’ supporting our mission statement. Service, that is taking care of our patients, is our number-one priority. The second pillar is teaching and nurturing the next generations of care-givers, doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, etc., and the third area is undertaking clinical research to expand our knowledge and skills in medical science.

In terms of service we aim to offer our patients ‘best outcome, best experience’. We want to provide the best outcome by providing the best clinical care. I know people do not wish to come to a hospital, but if they have to, we want to provide them with the best experience possible. This idea was derived and drawn up by the doctors and administrators together and provides a common purpose, mindset and language that permeate the whole hospital. There are four key principles underlying this:

● assure best outcomes (i.e. clinical quality)

● create seamless service (i.e. operational quality)