IHQ » Highlights & Events » Writeup on The inaugural NHG Adding Years of Healthy Life Conference 2010 – Many helping hands to improve population health!

The inaugural NHG Adding Years of Healthy Life Conference 2010 – Many helping hands to improve population health!

The first NHG Adding Years of Healthy Life Conference was held on 23 and 24 August 2010 at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. It was well-attended by more than 600 staff from NHG institutions and partners from the primary care, step-down care, community and social services, education and public sector. We were privileged to have Ms Yong Ying-I, Permanent Secretary (Health) grace the opening ceremony and share some of MOH’s current efforts and new potential areas in integrating care.

Participants at Adding Years of Healthy Life Conference 2010

Mr Göran Henriks, our keynote speaker

The conference was aimed at:

• Discovering common ground for future development and collaboration among those involved in developing population health strategies
• Learning from overseas and local experts on population health management
• Understanding the dynamics and determinants of health and exploring possibilities for shared visions

The NHG vision, “Adding Years of Healthy Life”, was chosen to be the theme of the conference with the intent of reminding and challenging ourselves to go back to the fundamentals of healthcare, to refocus on health and not just healthcare alone, and shift beyond illness care to pre-illness and post-illness care.

We were honoured to have Mr Göran Henriks as our keynote speaker. He is the Chief Executive of Learning and Innovation from Jönköping, a Swedish county that has been cited as having one of the best healthcare models in the world by Quality experts and forums, including the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).

In his keynote addresses, Göran shared about providing care that the population needs and wants, connecting the population’s perspectives and provider focus, and exploring the quality of partnership. On the second day, he challenged us to consider “why doing more of the same is not enough”, to relook at our work processes for greater efficiency and to improve the integration and connectivity between health, community and home.

Two other renowned speakers, Associate Professor Boel Andersson, Head of Research and Education from Jönköping and Dr Helen Bevan, Chief of Service Transformation at the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement also shared on the transformation of the healthcare system and the integration of care, using many examples based on their countries’ experience.

A total of 12 symposiums were conducted under the three conference tracks – System thinking, Engagement and Collaborations, Knowledge Creation. We had the opportunity to hear from many external speakers such as Mr David Ong from the People’s Association Active Ageing Council, Mr Samuel Ng from YAH! Community College and Dr James Thompson from Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School.

Indeed, the conference has created an invaluable platform for different ones to come together to network, build partnerships and understand the good work that has been done to improve population health. Feedback from guests and delegates has also shown that many have benefitted and gained much insight through this two-day conference.