Internet separation has lengthened waiting times for patients

The Ministry of Health's (MOH) chief data adviser, Associate Professor James Yip, yesterday outlined these difficulties before a Committee of Inquiry (COI) looking into Singapore's worst cyber attack.

In June, the personal data of 1.5 million SingHealth patients and the outpatient prescription information of 160,000 people, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, were stolen.

Temporary Internet surfing separation (ISS) was imposed on SingHealth on July 19, followed by the National University Health System (NUHS) and the National Healthcare Group (NHG) on July 22, as a move to safeguard IT systems and confidential patient data after the cyber attack.

Health Minister Gan Kim Yong told Parliament in August that the Government was studying ways to make ISS a permanent measure in some parts of the public healthcare system.

But since the implementation of the ISS, Prof Yip said the healthcare clusters, which comprise largely hospitals, polyclinics and medical centres, have had problems with patient care.

Healthcare staff have had to take additional steps to book screening appointments and upload test results for patients.

Frontline patient administration has been affected too.

According to Prof Yip, staff now have to use separate, shared devices to retrieve patient information like insurance details, work permit status and Medisave balances.

This increases waiting time for patients.

As a result, hospital staff have to use their personal mobile phones for work. But the use of separate Internet enabled devices also opens up the system to new cyber-security risks, pointed out Prof Yip.

CHALLENGES

Prof Yip acknowledged that following the SingHealth attack, public healthcare staff have accepted the challenges of temporary ISS, and that patients have accepted poorer service delivery standards, delays and inconveniences.

But the current situation is not sustainable, he added.

"The operational challenges highlighted above will inevitably translate into tangible manpower and financial costs, and reduced employee and patient satisfaction," he said. "Ultimately, healthcare costs for the general Singapore public will rise."

Testifying before the Committee of Inquiry (COI), former director of the United States' National Security Agency Keith Alexander also warned that cyber criminals can find vulnerabilities and breach any organisation's IT system, given enough time, and current protection measures are insufficient.

To counter this, the Government and industry players need to work together on collective systems that share information to continually learn and prepare defences.

"The threats we face exceed the defences that we have... We need to up the game on the defence, and the defences have to grow quickly," Mr Alexander, now chief executive officer of IronNet Cybersecurity, said yesterday.

Source : The New Paper

BUSINESS STRATEGY

Business (or Strategic) management is the art, science, and craft of formulating, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its long-term objectives. It is the process of specifying the organization's mission, vision and objectives, developing policies and plans, often in terms of projects and programs, which are designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the policies and plans, projects and programs. Strategic management seeks to coordinate and integrate the activities of the various functional areas of a business in order to achieve long-term organizational objectives. A balanced scorecard is often used to evaluate the overall performance of the business and its progress towards objectives. Strategic management is the highest level of managerial activity.

Strategies are typically planned, crafted or guided by the Chief Executive Officer, approved or authorized by the Board of directors, and then implemented under the supervision of the organization's top management team or senior executives. Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise and is closely related to the field of Organization Studies.

In the field of business administration it is useful to talk about "strategic alignment" between the organization and its environment or "strategic consistency". According to Arieu , "there is strategic consistency when the actions of an organization are consistent with the expectations of management, and these in turn are with the market and the context." Before reading the rest, it is recommended that An Overview of Strategic Planning be read. General Business Management The Three Processes of Strategy Approaches to Strategic Management History of Business Management until the 1970s The Japanese Challenge Gaining Competitive Advantage Strategic Change in the 1990s Information- and Technology-Driven Strategy The Psychology of Business Management Failure of Strategy Limitations of Business Management Business Planning Business Plans Marketing Plans and Strategies The content of this Wikibook was originally found on Wikipedia, but moved due to various requests and because Wikibooks is a better location for the information. Theunixgeek (talk) 20:45, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

There are at least three basic kinds of strategy with which people must concern themselves in the world of business: just plain strategy or strategy in general, corporate strategy, and competitive strategy. The purposes of this article are to clarify the differences between and among these three kinds of strategy and to provide some questions useful in thinking about all three.

Business Strategy from Wharton: Competitive Advantage | edX

First, I recommend “Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy“ by Joan Magretta. It covers all the strategy essentials developed by Michael Porter. And, you have all the great ideas from Porter (types of business strategy, 5 forces, competitive advantage example, ….) in one book that reads easy. (Although some of the strategy content will be challenging if you don’t have a background in business strategy)

Once the strategy is determined, various goals and measures may be established to chart a course for the organization, measure performance and control implementation of the strategy. Tools such as the balanced scorecard and strategy maps help crystallize the strategy, by relating key measures of success and performance to the strategy. These tools measure financial, marketing, production, organizational development, and innovation measures to achieve a 'balanced' perspective. Advances in information technology and data availability enable the gathering of more information about performance, allowing managers to take a much more analytical view of their business than before.

Three Kinds of Business Strategy

Corporate strategy defines the markets and the businesses in which a company will operate. Competitive or business strategy defines for a given business the basis on which it will compete. Corporate strategy is typically decided in the context of defining the company's mission and vision, that is, saying what the company does, why it exists, and what it is intended to become. Competitive strategy hinges on a company's capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses in relation to market characteristics and the corresponding capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses of its competitors.

hand drawing idea board of business strategy process stock ...

Strategy, in general, refers to how a given objective will be achieved. Consequently, strategy in general is concerned with the relationships between ends and means, between the results we seek and the resources at our disposal. Strategy and tactics are both concerned with conceiving and then carrying out courses of action intended to attain particular objectives. For the most part, strategy is concerned with how you deploy or allocate the resources at your disposal whereas tactics is concerned with how you employ or make use of them. Together, strategy and tactics bridge the gap between ends and means.

In the 1980s business strategists realized that there was a vast knowledge base stretching back thousands of years that they had barely examined. They turned to military strategy for guidance. Military strategy books such as The Art of War by Sun Tzu, On War by von Clausewitz, and The Red Book by Mao Zedong became business classics. From Sun Tzu, they learned the tactical side of military strategy and specific tactical prescriptions. From von Clausewitz, they learned the dynamic and unpredictable nature of military action. From Mao, they learned the principles of guerrilla warfare. Important marketing warfare books include Business War Games by Barrie James, Marketing Warfare by Al Ries and Jack Trout and Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun by Wess Roberts.

Alfred Chandler recognized the importance of coordinating management activity under an all-encompassing strategy. Interactions between functions were typically handled by managers who relayed information back and forth between departments. Chandler stressed the importance of taking a long term perspective when looking to the future. In his 1962 ground breaking work Strategy and Structure, Chandler showed that a long-term coordinated strategy was necessary to give a company structure, direction and focus. He says it concisely, "structure follows strategy." Chandler wrote that:

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