Singapore is investing $150 million in the adoption of genAI in public health
Singapore’s Ministry of Health is investing US$200 million ($150 million) over the next five years to further implement new AI technologies into the island nation’s healthcare system.
This new infusion into the MOH Health Innovation Fund will support the development and testing of technological innovations, including AI, and make a “centralized push to scale them up into system-wide, national projects,” the ministry said in a statement.
It includes a generative AI project that automates data updating, which will be rolled out across the public healthcare system before the end of 2025. The MOH said it is committed to promoting the use of genAI tools to “automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks such as documentation and summarization of medical records.”
The ministry will also validate medical imaging AI that helps in breast cancer detection, which will be phased in as part of a national subsidized screening program from the end of 2025.
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Government-backed initiatives are underway in Singapore’s healthcare system to build and integrate genAI models and applications. Last year, the national health technology agency Synapxe expanded its collaboration with Microsoft to include the development of the Secure GPT for Healthcare Professionals, a common platform for developing large language models and genAI applications. The National University Health System has also developed its own LLM-based chatbot, called NUHS RUSSELL-GPT, which can summarize patient case notes and quickly write referral letters. Meanwhile, Singapore General Hospital has also expressed interest in applying genAI as part of pre-surgery assessments.
The MOH also promotes the introduction of AI for medical imaging through the National AI Platform for Radiology GoalSG. Introduced last year, this vendor-neutral platform enables public hospitals to integrate validated AI into their workflows. As a result, two hospitals under SingHealth have adopted AI for chest X-ray analysis. The National Healthcare Group is currently testing the same AI in its cluster.
In addition to announcing new AI investments, MOH also shared its plan to launch a national genetic testing program by the middle of next year, initially targeting familial hypercholesterolemia.
In addition, the MOH said it will improve national governance on AI use in healthcare “to enable the development and deployment of more AI solutions while ensuring safe care delivery to patients.”