Strategy

Expansion of our geographic coverage and increasing the capacity of our medicare centre and nursing homes

We intend to expand our existing geographical coverage within Singapore through acquisitions of appropriate sites.

We also plan to seek further growth through regional expansion and have been conducting preliminary market surveys in the PRC, Malaysia and Australia to ascertain the demand for our services in these countries.

Emphasis on quality service

We believe in providing quality services to our residents. Our emphasis on quality involves both infrastructure and the services provided by our staff. In terms of infrastructure, we have already converted our nursing home at 452 Upper East Coast Road in 2000 into a medicare centre. We will continue in our bid to improve our infrastructure by upgrading our nursing homes into medicare centres where feasible and setting up new medicare centres in the future.

In recognition that human resource is an important asset for us, we will continue to train our staff to upgrade their competency and skills. Besides in-house training, we have sponsored training programmes and conducted seminars and workshops.

Our medicare centre and nursing homes comply with the relevant and applicable government quality requirements. ENH was awarded the ISO 9002 certification in 1996 by the then National Productivity Board, now known as the Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board ("SPRING Singapore"). To the best of our Directors' knowledge, this award was the first in the nursing home industry.

Our subsidiary, Econ Careskill, has entered into a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (the "MOU") with PSB Corporation, a member of the SPRING Singapore group of companies, to jointly collaborate in the development and conducting of training programmes in healthcare services and nursing under the National Skill Recognition System ("NSRS"). The NSRS is a national framework for establishing work performance standards, identifying job competencies and certifying skills acquisition. It is implemented by SPRING Singapore. The system requires organisations to establish work performance standards to consistently deliver quality goods and services. Using the established standards, the system helps an organisation identify the competencies required for carrying out the work and the training needed by the staff to perform the work according to the stipulated standards. Our Managing Director, Mr Ong Chu Poh, is the appointed Chairman of the NSRS committee for the nursing home industry.

Under the MOU, Econ Careskill is to develop the modules for training, sourcing for suitable trainers, facilitate attachments or on the-job-training for trainees and arrange for suitable training facilities. The training programmes will be certified by PSB Corporation. To-date, six modules have been identified for implementation by the end of this year. The MOU also provides that the parties may explore the possibility of conducting such training programmes overseas.

Promoting awareness of our services

We intend to increase awareness of our medicare centre and nursing homes through referrals from our existing network of residents and their relatives and friends, and from hospitals. In order to increase these referrals, we continually seek to maintain and improve our rapport through our quality services and continual communication

Public awareness is increased through our public seminars. We cover topics such as stroke management and TCM treatments. These seminars are either conducted by our in-house staff or invited speakers. We also advertise in the Yellow Pages and relevant professional magazines such as Hospital Guide.

Having operated an extension ward at TTSH for the last five years, we intend to approach other hospitals to set up similar wards.

Branding

Our Group will continue to strive to develop the "Econ" name into a leading premium healthcare brand synonymous with quality healthcare services and management. The operations of our medicare centre and nursing homes are led by our management team which includes our Nursing Quality Manager, Operations Manager and Marketing Manager, each of whom has more than seven years of relevant experience. With the assistance of our experienced staff and our existing quality procedures in accordance with the ISO 9002 certification, we intend to maintain and upgrade our existing infrastructure and services to enhance our image and brand name.