St. Luke’s Hospital: Collaborating to Advance Health and Well-Being

St. Luke’s Hospital (SLH) started out as a community hospital (CH) to help rehabilitate patients who had undergone or were undergoing treatment at acute-care hospitals. By 2016, SLH’s range of services had increased manifold, making SLH one of the few CHs with a comprehensive suite of services, such as rehabilitative, wound, and dementia care. Beyond inpatient care, SLH also offered outpatient and support services such as day-patient rehabilitation, diagnostics and laboratory services, and home-care services. To meet the growing health-care needs of an aging population, Singapore adopted the CH concept for its national health-care master plan, which projected a tripling in the number of CH beds over the next 10–15 years. As more new public CHs were established, especially in the western region of Singapore—where SLH used to operate as the only CH—SLH had to review its role and future direction. To sustain its competitive advantage, should the organization invest its resources into strengthening its existing capabilities, or diversify into new areas of growth? Tan had to provide his recommendation at the next quarterly board meeting.

This case is suitable for undergraduate and graduate-level classes on social innovation and social entrepreneurship. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to<br><br><ul><li>understand the concept of design thinking and its application to provide patient-centric service offerings in the health-care industry;</li><li>appreciate the various collaboration modes that an organization can adopt in pursuing an open innovation to enhance the quality of its service offerings;</li><li>gain insight into the importance of an ecosystem in fostering social innovation for a community;</li><li>understand how an asset-based community development (ABCD) approach can be deployed to inspire action for change in a community; and</li><li>appreciate the key challenges and opportunities present in the health-care industry, and how non-profit organizations respond to them.</li></ul>

• social innovation
• competitive strategy
• non-profit organization
• health and well-being