Singaporean health chiefs embrace digital health to tackle staff shortage: report
Healthcare leaders and young professionals across Singapore have a shared vision of delivering more connected and sustainable healthcare, enabled by digital technologies.
Based on Singapore findings from Royal Philips' Future Health Index 2023 report, Singapore is making 'steady' progress in digital healthcare transformation. Findings from across the Asia-Pacific were previously published in the regional version of the report.
FINDINGS
The country's Ministry of Health previously predicted a need for as many as 24,000 additional paramedics and healthcare support staff to meet the demands of the country's aging population by 2030.
Based on a survey of 200 senior healthcare executives and junior doctors, 75% said they are already using or planning to use digital health technology to alleviate the impact of the growing healthcare workforce shortage. In particular, they are looking at cloud-based technologies, out-of-hospital solutions and workflow technologies such as digital health records and patient flow automation.
A quarter of respondents recognize the opportunities and benefits of AI and say they are currently investing in the technology. As many as 84% of them have committed to investing in healthcare AI over the next three years. Of the applications of AI, most healthcare leaders surveyed favor AI for predicting outcomes and AI for clinical decision support.
Meanwhile, an institution powered by AI is a top priority for employment among young healthcare professionals.
About half of healthcare leaders surveyed said they are also currently investing in virtual care, which is recognized as having a “significant impact” on improving patient care.
As new technology-enabled distributed care models have grown in popularity in recent years, Singapore's healthcare leaders have not missed a beat, with about two-thirds of respondents saying they are “well equipped” to work effectively with these new care models. Most of them expect that these care models will contribute to a better work-life balance and greater job satisfaction.
In terms of benefits, these distributed care models are expected to yield greater patient compliance; greater revenue opportunities; and increased efficiency and more convenient locations for patients.
THE BIG TREND
Further evidence of Singapore's strong commitment to AI adoption in healthcare is the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the National Health Technology Agency Synapxe and Microsoft. The organizations are now working together to use generative AI to increase clinical productivity, among other areas of collaboration to modernize the country's public health IT.
Singapore's main R&D agency, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, recently launched a joint AI lab with health technology company EVYD Technology. The lab aims to facilitate multi-institutional, cross-border collaborations in the field of digital health.