KK WOMEN’S AND CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL |
Overview |
KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH), is the largest medical facility in Singapore, which provides specialised care for women, babies and children.
The hospital employs over 2700 personnel comprising more than 300 specialist doctors, over 1,000 nurses and 300 paramedical staff. Each year, KKH sees more than 500,000 women and children who come as inpatients or outpatients. Furthermore, one-third of all couples in Singapore choose to deliver their babies at KKH. |
Strategy |
Mission |
To position itself as a Pro-Family business, KKH recognises the importance of catering to the needs of the entire family. As a healthcare institution for women and children, KKH believes that when the hospital treats its patients, it also treats their whole family. |
Product & Service Mix |
KKH constantly factors pro-family initiatives into its strategic planning to improve the processes and facilities for its patients and their families.
The hospital is equipped with facilities such as WiFi-enabled wards and the Ronald McDonald Family Room. The WiFi-enabled wards allow parents to stay connected to the office while accompanying their sick child; and the Ronald McDonald Family Room is furnished with the basic amenities of a hotel to allow parents to stay within the premises to tend to their hospitalised child.
There is a Play Center and Teen Room that caters for paediatric patients and their family members. From facilities like video games, toys and books to activity sessions like art and craft, and resource materials for parents, the whole family can be entertained. |
Marketing & Promotions |
To provide families with a platform for bonding, KK Juniors Club offers members privileges that include a regular newsletter and seminars on parenting and kids workshops at discounted rates. Members also enjoy shopping privileges and rebates at participating stores.
KKH also organises various talks and workshops for both patients and their family members. |
Service |
Service Attitude |
To ensure service quality, KKH incorporated a process map of serving patients and their families at the various touch points. Staff attend a comprehensive range of training that include “Service from the Heart” and handling of different family members in its “Managing of Difficult Individuals” training.
Helpful information for patients and family members are made available through brochures in four different languages at the respective clinics, online via “Patient Health Library” and a phone-in “Ask-A-Nurse” service. |
Nurturing service care |
To nurture service care, KKH undertook to shorten its patients waiting time as this affects the family members too. By empowering the hospital’s admission assistants to log into a computerized database, showing up-to-the-minute information on the beds unoccupied, admission staff can immediately inform parents of the bed types available for their child. The waiting time for patients to be admitted into hospital from the KKH Children’s Emergency department plunged from over one hour to under 20 minutes.
As the accident and emergency department sees over 110,000 children a year, with 19 per cent of them being hospitalized, this improved work process has resulted in greater patient satisfaction. Overall, quality care for patients has been enhanced and staff are able to devote more attention to their patients. |
Safety first |
To provide families with peace of mind, KKH has in place a “Code Yellow – Unauthorised removal of child and neonates”, which is a unique code in KKH to ensure the safety and security of young children. |
Infrastructure |
Access & Layout |
To help patients who have difficulty in walking around and to the outpatient clinics, KKH has wheelchairs placed at strategic alighting points such as taxi stands, driveways and basement carparks.
Other family-friendly features of KKH include a sheltered link to the bus-stop in front of the hospital, rest areas for patients and family members at each service location and a red zone depicting pram-friendly area in the Food Court. |
Facilities |
The hospital has set up food kiosks that cater to children and adults; extended operating hours of the shuttle bus service for the benefit of the patients’ family members; and introduced Animal Musical Rides to entertain the little ones.
For family members who accompany patients in the wards, they can conveniently call for delivery of meals from the hospital catering service. |
