Solving APAC’s ‘Maggi Mee’ healthcare paradox

Patients want healthcare that is "fast to cook, good to eat, and cheap."

The Asia-Pacific healthcare sector is currently trapped in a "Maggi Mee" paradox: the demand for services that are simultaneously fast to cook, good to eat, and cheap - as encapsulated by Dr Melvin Heng, executive director and group CEO of Thomson Medical Group.

"In this current environment, I think as healthcare providers, we need to continue to pursue delivering care at a certain quality, not less... we still have to do it as fast as we can, but cheaper," Heng added during a panel discussion at the Healthcare Asia Summit held in Singapore on 25 March.

This "impossible triangle" of affordability, speed, and quality is being strained by "out of control" medical inflation and a "huge reliance on the private sector" across diverse resource settings.

The problem is exacerbated by a fundamental "disconnect and there is a gap between the demand and the supply,” said Lawrence Sibayan, vice president for Marketing and Business Development & Chief of Staff, Makati Life Medical Centre.

In the Philippines, even the richest cities struggle with saturated public systems, requiring private partners to supplement care without inflating costs to the taxpayer.

Meanwhile, in Myanmar, the healthcare landscape continues to evolve amid a complex operating environment.

“Our inflationary pressures remain elevated, and there are ongoing challenges in maintaining seamless public sector services,” said Dr Zaw Win Sandy, CEO of Pun Hlaing Hospitals.

With a significant proportion of healthcare spending being out-of-pocket, the private sector plays an important role in ensuring continuity of care. Providers are working to adapt to operational challenges, including resource constraints and supply chain disruptions, while maintaining patient access and service quality.

To break this triangle and achieve sustainable returns, regional leaders are moving beyond traditional hospital management toward systemness and incentive alignment.

"The invisible threads that actually incentivise and move these pieces are highly, actually highly complex and highly unique," Heng said.

He argued that the only way to deliver better versions of "instant noodles" is to give clinicians "skin in the game." By allowing doctors to take up equity ownership, they become "more thoughtful on what they wanted to spend and how they wanted to spend it," aligning clinical decisions with business sustainability.

This move toward alignment is echoed by private equity investors who now measure Return on Investment (ROI) through systemic impact rather than simple revenue.

"Attractive businesses are not platforms which are trying to focus and do everything... you should only focus on what is core to your business," Anjli Kaushal, director at Quadria Capital, said.

She noted that ROI is now tied to whether a system is "really making cost-efficient" changes, such as moving low-margin services like dialysis out of the hospital to free up space for high-margin procedures and "better OT utilisation."

In the public sector, the focus has shifted toward vertical and horizontal integration to reduce the long-term burden on the system.

"What we want to do is keep the population active... we want to reduce the need to tap on healthcare," said Dr Eugene Shum, director, Community Partnership at the SingHealth Office of Regional Health.

By linking with community partners and sports associations, the goal is to create a "flow of care" that picks up issues early, ensuring that the patient journey is integrated from "preventive acute care" to "post-acute care."