Health Management International Pte Ltd (HMI Group), a growing regional private healthcare provider with presence in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, is expanding its Singapore footprint with a majority stake purchase in OneCare Medical Group (OneCare), a chain of private primary care clinics in Singapore. The move is part of HMI Group’s strategy to boost value-based care offering across the country.
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“With the investment in OneCare, we are expanding our Singapore presence and doubling down on our value-based care offering in line with the government’s ‘3 Beyonds’ push to keep healthcare in Singapore affordable and accessible,” said Ms Chin Wei Jia, Group Chief Executive Officer of HMI Group.
Alongside the increased stake in OneCare, HMI Group’s Singapore expansion strategy includes opening as well as acquiring more private primary care clinics. At the same time, HMI Group is also broadening its offerings at its subsidiary StarMed Specialist Centre (StarMed), a one-stop ambulatory care centre that provides quality, cost-effective, convenient and comfortable experiences for patients and their families.
Since HMI Group opened StarMed in 2018, the centre has doubled in size from four floors spanning some 16,000 square feet, to eight floors spanning 29,400 square feet. StarMed is equipped with day surgery theatres, endoscopy suites, radiology centre, specialist clinics and health screening centre. Plans are underway to open an orthopaedic centre, a digestive and bariatric centre and an eye centre. In addition, StarMed is also building a new patient ward floor, which includes an ICU-capable negative pressure room.
“Our goal is to build a value-based healthcare ecosystem that offers primary to specialist and ambulatory care in Singapore,” Ms Chin said.
With OneCare, HMI Group is bringing affordable and quality primary healthcare to the heartlands to better serve the population’s healthcare needs, including preventative
medicine to help avoid unnecessary hospitalisations. With StarMed, HMI Group is providing a quality alternative for people to access specialist healthcare and integrated services, without the long wait times or expense of traditional hospitals. This alternative access to specialist healthcare also means people may not need to defer elective surgeries due to limited hospital capacity, which occurs periodically when hospitals need to focus on Covid-patient care.
“Through StarMed, we want to help free up hospital beds for more urgent life-saving treatments. Especially since StarMed can handle 60% to 70% of healthcare procedures safely outside of hospitals, and also offers ambulatory care post-surgery,” Ms Chin said.
Making Private Healthcare Affordable and Accessible
In 2017, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced the “3 Beyonds” strategy, which aims to ensure healthcare goes:
1. Beyond hospitals to communities so people can receive appropriate care in the community or at home, and avoid frequent hospital admissions
2. Beyond quality to value so people receive increased quality of care while ensuring value for money
3. Beyond healthcare to health to encourage people to take proactive measures to stay healthy
In December 2018, HMI Group made its initial investment in OneCare with the goal of accelerating the private primary care clinics’ growth to provide healthcare beyond hospitals and in heartland communities. Over the past three years, HMI Group has achieved that with OneCare’s management team, which includes co-founders Dr Jimmy Chew, CEO of OneCare, and Dr Kenneth Koh, Medical Director of OneCare.
“Since 2018, the number of clinics OneCare operates has more than doubled from 12 to 25. Pre-covid, our clinics saw close to 450,000 visits annually, with around 90% of patients from the heartlands,” Dr Chew said. “We plan to build on our achievements so far, and HMI Group’s increased stake will allow us to offer personalised interactions and better healthcare experiences for more patients as we grow more clinics across Singapore.”
Holistic Healthcare for All
Established in 2013, OneCare’s mission is to provide affordable private primary healthcare in Singapore through a hybrid of brick-and-mortar facilities and virtual care. OneCare clinics are Medisave and CHAS-accredited and most of the clinics are part of the various Primary Care Networks, which is the MOH’s plan to have better coordinated and holistic primary healthcare in the community.
“HMI Group and OneCare share the same vision of delivering value-based care that’s affordable and accessible,” Ms Chin said. “We appreciate that OneCare clinics are well located within Singapore heartlands. These relationships built over time earns the residents’ trust as important health partners providing holistic and accessible acute and chronic care serving the community’s needs.”
Founded in 2018 in partnership with a group of specialist doctors, StarMed offers specialist care such as cardiology, gastroenterology, general surgery, orthopaedics, ENT, paediatrics, radiology and urology. The specialist centre offers competitive pricing and same-day appointments where patients could be referred from OneCare primary care clinics to receive specialist care such as scans, surgery and recovery all in one place. StarMed is on the panel for most Integrated Shield Plan and selected corporate insurance providers in Singapore. For example, StarMed is a specialist healthcare and day surgery partner on Prudential Singapore’s hospital partnership programme – PRUPanel Connect.
“HMI Group’s mission has always been to provide quality and accessible healthcare. With our Singapore expansion plans, we are looking forward to serving more people closer to their homes in the heartlands,” Ms. Chin said.
About Health Management International Pte Ltd
Health Management International Pte Ltd (“HMI” or the “Group”) is a growing regional private healthcare provider with presence in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. The Group owns and operates two tertiary hospitals in Malaysia. In Singapore, the Group owns and operates a healthcare training centre, a primary care clinic chain with 25 locations, and Singapore’s first private one-stop ambulatory care centre. The Group also has a network of representative offices in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
Established in 1994, Mahkota Medical Centre (“Mahkota”) is HMI’s flagship hospital located in the heart of Malacca, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular destination for medical care and leisure. The 340-bed hospital is the largest private tertiary hospital in South Malaysia, offering a comprehensive suite of healthcare services and the first and only hospital in Malacca to offer nuclear medicine and kidney transplant services. It is also a leader in Malaysia medical tourism, serving close to 100,000 international patients per year and named the “Malaysia Medical Tourism Hospital of the Year” by Frost & Sullivan in 2015 and 2016.
The Group’s second hospital, Regency Specialist Hospital (“Regency”) was launched in 2009 and is one of the fastest growing private tertiary hospitals in Malaysia. Strategically located within the fast developing and vibrant Iskandar Malaysia, the special economic zone in the state of Johor, the 218- bed Regency is easily accessible via land, sea or air from Singapore, Indonesia and the region. Regency is in the midst of building a major hospital extension block to increase capacity up to 500 beds. It is the only private hospital in Malaysia with a 24-hour Emergency & Trauma Centre, providing round the clock specialist attention and medical care to both local and international patients.
The Group holds a majority stake in StarMed Specialist Centre (“StarMed”), a one-stop day-surgery and multidisciplinary medical centre that offers quality clinical services at competitive private sector prices. The Group also holds a majority stake in OneCare Medical, fast-growing primary care clinic chain with 25 clinics across Singapore.
HMI’s healthcare training centre, the HMI Institute of Health Sciences, is a Skills Future Singapore accredited Continuing Education and Training Centre for the healthcare support sector. It has trained more than 4,500 healthcare professionals and 160,000 individuals in emergency life-saving skills to date.
For more information, please refer to www.hmi.com.sg.
About OneCare Medical
Established in 2013, OneCare Medical (“OneCare”) is a fast-growing primary care clinic chain with 25 clinics across Singapore. OneCare offers a full range of primary care services, health screening and medical examinations for its patients. OneCare remains committed in delivering Affordable, Accessible and Quality healthcare for all patients.
OneCare was named the 7th fastest growing company on the Straits Times’ list of Singapore’s Fastest Growing Companies in 2019. The Straits Times and Statista recognised OneCare as the 2nd fastest growing company in the healthcare sector in Singapore, and was the 158th fastest growing company in Asia-Pacific in 2020. It was also awarded the Most Trusted Preventative Healthcare Services provider 2021 by APAC Insider, recognising OneCare’s ongoing commitment to bring affordable, accessible and quality primary care.
For more information, please refer to www.onecaremedical.com.sg.
About StarMed Specialist Centre
Established in 2018, StarMed Specialist Centre (“StarMed”) is Singapore’s first private one-stop private ambulatory care centre. StarMed comprises of GP and health screening services, specialist clinics, operating theatres, endoscopy suites and radiology facilities. With more than 40 experienced doctors, StarMed’s specialties include cardiology, gastroenterology, general surgery, orthopaedics, ENT, paediatrics, radiology and urology. The centre is conveniently situated above Farrer Park MRT station and co-located with the 300-room Holiday Inn Singapore Little India.
For more information, please refer to www.starmedspecialist.com/
Contact:
Chi-an Chang, Director, Financial PR Chi-an@FinancialPR.com.sg
