Hospital service support teams urged to establish call centres

KOTA KINABALU: Hospital service support teams are encouraged to establish call centres to increase service delivery efficiency.

The move is highly supported by the Ministry of Health, said its deputy secretary general (finance) Dato’ Mohd Shafiq Abdullah.

“In organisational management, you must consider ways to increase performance of delivery system.

“Companies need to be more proactive now. The ministry is always monitoring concessions for maintenance of health facilities, so we need to see the effectiveness in companies that have been granted those concessions,” he said.

Shafiq said this to the press after officiating at the Sedafiat Call Centre at Metro Town near here, commending its efforts as a benchmarking tool to improve performance in providing hospital service.

He also encouraged companies to take advantage of digitalisation as a way to increase productivity and outcome, adding that the ministry is in the works of upgrading infrastructure to be more tech savvy.

“We’re working on how we can automate delivery of services as the ministry’s infrastructure is becoming increasingly modern.

“We are also in the midst of identifying which sectors need automation and which should retain manpower.

“It would not be efficient to rely solely on manpower, as automation could maintain a certain standard of delivery,” he said.

According to Shafiq, the ministry is in its planning stages and is conducting workshops to discuss implementation in hospitals in time to come.

Meanwhile, health expenses will continue to rise if Malaysians do not take control of their lifestyle.

“Society empowerment is important because we need to inculcate the mentality that we must be responsible for our own health.

“Health expenses are always on the rise because the number of Malaysians are increasing, as well as costs for health services such as construction of new hospitals and maintenance of existing ones.

“Hence, increasing costs are unavoidable unless Malaysians make an effort to lead a healthy lifestyle to prevent illnesses,” said Shafiq.

He further said if the ministry is able to reduce their budget, the money could go towards more proactive sectors, such as education.