A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW ON HEALTHCARE FINANCING IN SINGAPORE

ABSTRACT Background: Healthcare financing has been on the global agenda for many countries to elevate the health status of the citizens at the same time aim for a lean and sustainable health system. Singapore in particular has demonstrated progressive leaps in health care financing through various reforms. Materials and Methods: A systematic review of articles related to health care financing in Singapore was compiled using a series of keyword search in various databases (Medline, CINAHL, and PubMed ). Studies that were conducted from 1981 to 2015, written in English and used either a quantitative or qualitative design that focus on health care reform in Singapore were included in this study. Result: Most of the studies revealed that the most innovative factor in the health care financing in Singapore was the structure and the comprehensive health insurance systems that are in place but it was not necessarily deemed beneficial or affordable to its citizens. The systematic review yielded over 125 results, only 7 of which were relevant to this study after examining in full text. A purposeful approach was then pursued. Snowballing on bibliographic references and undertaking key author and grey-literature searches proved as an effective complimentary approach to the original review and was reverted to in addition to the original search. This method brought the full-text results up to 5. Conclusion: Healthcare financing have a direct influence on the citizens of Singapore and although comprehensive, it also has deficiencies and issues that still need to be addressed. Keywords: Health care, Reform, Financing, Singapore, systematic review