By Rachel Au-Yong & Alessa Pang

A TYPICAL morning at Bedok Polyclinic is crowded with patients awaiting their turns and staff making their rounds.

But despite the bustle, nurses pause to greet and ask after regular patients, who reciprocate with smiles.

As the polyclinic's director, Dr Swah Teck Sim, heads towards his office, a patient calls: 'Hello, Dr Swah!'

The doctor smiles at the man waving at him and asks after his health.

Such personalised service and other efforts to make patients feel at home - a feat for the busy polyclinic, which sees more than 1,000 patients a day - have not gone unnoticed by its patients.

They rated Bedok Polyclinic as the best among 17 polyclinics last year in an annual patient satisfaction survey commissioned by the Health Ministry.

The results were released last month.

Poor communication between polyclinic staff and patients can result in patients faring poorly, said Dr Swah. 'Furthermore, people's expectations are increasing all the time, and we want to be able to meet those standards.'

So the polyclinic tries to ensure that, as far as possible, regular patients, especially those with chronic diseases, see the same doctors on their follow-up visits and build up rapport.

Its 15 doctors take part in weekly discussions and scenario simulations, which teach them skills on communicating with their patients, such as the best way to break bad news to them.

Its 35 nurses, regardless of their ethnicity, pick up various dialects, such as Hokkien and Cantonese, so that they can convey simple instructions to elderly patients.

Part-time dance instructor Siow Geok Peng, 70, has been seeing Dr Swah for the last seven years, and credits the doctor with lowering his high cholesterol level.

He said of Dr Swah: 'I'm touched by his warmth. Because he's so familiar, it's very easy to update him on my health.'

He added: 'The staff here treat me like a friend. They never fail to greet me and chat with me when I'm here.'

Even seemingly mundane details, such as air-conditioning and the wall colours, have not been forgotten in the drive to make patients feel comfortable.

Between 2002 and 2004, air-conditioning was installed, and the walls were repainted with brighter, more cheery colours such as orange, purple and yellow.

Dr Swah said the whole clinic used to be blue and seemed 'cold and clinical' but now, it looks 'more welcoming'.

The polyclinic has also made improvements to help patients use its services more easily. It introduced a computer programme that catalogues all types of drugs, making it easier for pharmacists to help patients who do not know or remember their medications, especially illiterate old folk.

They can search for drugs using a simple description of the pill's size, shape and colour, and verify it by showing the photographs to the patients.

The polyclinic also installed two queue ticketing machines in August 2006, which have reduced the waiting time for registration to less than 20 minutes now. At the push of a button, labelled in the four national languages, patients are issued a queue number.

In March last year, the clinic implemented an SMS notification system, which sends an SMS to the patient shortly before his queue number is called. This allows patients to leave the clinic any time during the wait, especially if the wait takes longer than expected.

Despite these steps, the long waiting time remains a problem for some.

Student Chen Lisha, 24, who was at the polyclinic to get a flu jab, said: 'Maybe it's because there are more patients at this branch, as I don't normally have to wait so long at the other ones.'

The polyclinic plans to expand its appointment system - now used for just 10per cent of its patients who see senior doctors or nurses for their chronic diseases - to all its patients in the near future so that waiting time can be cut further.

This article was first published in The Straits Times