Speech by Health Minister Mr Gan Kim Yong at the National Medical Excellence Awards 2012 on 28 Aug 2012

My colleagues and distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Good evening.

Last year, I attended the National Medical Excellence Awards (NMEA) and I am very pleased to be here again this evening with you for the NMEA 2012.

Challenges in Singapore’s healthcare landscape

2.         Recently, a Bloomberg report ranked Singapore the healthiest country amongst 145 countries surveyed[1]. But before we celebrate, there remain many challenges, particularly with our rapidly ageing population, the rise in chronic diseases as well as the emergence of new disease patterns. We will need to continue to innovate and evolve to meet the changing healthcare needs, while containing the rising costs of better care.

 3.        Healthcare affordability is one of the key tasks my ministry is tackling head on. Our 3M framework has served us well and we will continue to strengthen it to keep it relevant and effective. Prime Minister announced on Sunday that we will create a Medisave account for each child at birth and the government will put in an initial sum. The details are being worked out. This will give Singaporeans greater peace of mind.

4.         However, to provide good healthcare, MOH cannot do this alone. We will have to work closely with healthcare professionals like you, healthcare institutions in both the private and public sectors as well as all Singaporeans to ensure that our healthcare remains of high quality, is accessible and is affordable.

5.         In fact, today’s healthcare excellence may be the new normal of tomorrow. It is the spirit of individuals like our NMEA winners today and many healthcare professionals among you who will continue to make a difference in healthcare so that we can continue to achieve excellence in healthcare tomorrow.

Contributions of Healthcare Professionals

6.         Last month I visited the SIMTAC at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. They have state-of-the-art simulation facilities to enhance the skills of existing healthcare professionals and train future ones. But even more important to me than the hardware and software is the real heartware – committed and dedicated professionals who put patients first. As the SingHealth motto puts it, “Patients at the heart of all we do” – we need such innovative, dedicated and passionate healthcare professionals whose heart is for the patients.

7.         I also attended the SingHealth Duke-NUS Scientific Congress recently and I was pleased to note that SingHealth and Duke-NUS staff had produced research that benefitted patients and improved the work of their colleagues. One of their Clinician Scientists, Professor Pierce Chow will be recognised tonight as the winner of the National Outstanding Clinician Scientist Award. Such research matters and it will improve our lot.

Research and healthcare affordability

8.         Professor Paola Castagnoli, the Scientific Director of the Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), who was conferred the prestigious honour of the “Order of the Star of Italy”[2], shared in an interview with Lianhe Zaobao[3] last month that Singapore continually invests in useful and productive research that will enable us to be on the cutting edge to achieve tomorrow’s excellence.  Hence one of the criteria in selecting our NMEA winners is that for all their achievements, whether as clinicians, educators, researchers, mentors or clinical quality activists, their research work must improve processes, outcomes, and help future generations of healthcare professionals enhance clinical skills to eventually benefit our patients. The pursuit of real medical excellence must eventually improve patient outcomes and accessibility to treatment.

Tomorrow’s Excellence

9.         MOH will continue to ensure that we create an environment that is conducive, to provide opportunities to retain, attract, develop and recognise medical talent in our various healthcare professionals. The National Medical Research Council (NMRC), set up under MOH in 1994, will continue to oversee the development and the advancement of medical research in Singapore. NMRC has done much over the years and we are seeing the fruits of our efforts. The annual National Medical Excellence Awards showcases such an achievement.

10.       Tonight we celebrate the outstanding achievements and contributions from our healthcare professionals who have demonstrated their skills and talent in clinical quality, education, mentorship, research and leadership. They are the role models who will inspire succeeding generations as they strive to achieve tomorrow’s excellence.

11.       Take Professor Prabhakaran for example. He is one of the joint winners of the National Outstanding Clinician Award. An outstanding paediatric surgeon, he is credited with many “firsts” in paediatric surgery in the country including performing the first living-related renal transplant in Singapore back in 1989. Thanks to him and his colleagues in the paediatric surgery community, Singapore’s long-term survival rate for paediatric liver transplant recipients is comparable to the best in the world.

12.       Another of our award winners tonight, the team led by Associate Professor Sophia Ang, from National University Hospital (NUH), came up with an innovative way of leveraging on the hospital’s messaging system (HMS) to automatically assemble a concise message that is routed to the ordering clinician via mobile phone. This innovation resulted in marked improvement in the outcomes, standards, safety and quality of patient care in NUH, and significantly reduced the mean response to action time by clinicians in the hospital. The system has since been adopted for use in other healthcare institutions including Alexandra Hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. The project was published by the American Journal of Clinical Pathology[4] and was named one of the Top 10 game changers in Pathology in 2011 by Medscape and in the British Medical Journal of Quality and Safety and named the Editors choice article in August 2012.

13.       As we pursue medical excellence and research, we should not forget that patients are at the heart of what we do. Accolades like world rankings will pass, but your compassion and concern for the patient will last a lifetime. As a Chinese saying goes, “医者父母心”- doctors should have the benevolence for patients, just like how parents would care for their children.

Conclusion

14.       I congratulate all the NMEA winners this year. You have excelled in your respective fields, and are the forerunners in your generation. The National Medical Excellence Awards has now entered its fifth year and I look forward to all award winners to become national role models for clinicians, educators, mentors, researchers and clinical quality activists. As we strive for excellence, we must continue to uphold and recognise role models who will help make our good healthcare accessible to all Singaporeans.

15.       Thank you.

[1] Relevant links:

http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2012-08-13/world-s-healthiest-countries.html#slide1

http://images.businessweek.com/bloomberg/pdfs/WORLDS_HEALTHIEST_COUNTRIES_v1.pdf

[2] The “Order of the Star of Italy” (Ufficiale dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia) is one of the highest civil honours awarded by the Italian President.

[3] Report was published on Lianhe Zaobao, 20 July 2012, page 14. Prof Paola is a Singapore permanent resident.

[4] The project was published in 2011. Accessible at: http://ajcp.ascpjournals.org/content/136/1/30.full.pdf+html?sid=461d10d1-186e-4e8a-9412-f6db636d1836