Speech by Minister for Health, Mr Gan Kim Yong, at the Opening Ceremony of SingHealth Duke-NUS Scientific Congress, 23 September 2016

Mr Peter Seah, Chairman, SingHealth

Members of the board, SingHealth and Duke-NUS

Professor Ivy Ng, Group CEO, SingHealth

Professor Thomas Coffman, Dean, Duke-NUS Medical School

Distinguished guests

Ladies and gentlemen

INTRODUCTION

1.        Good morning to all of you. It is my pleasure to join you this morning at the opening ceremony of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Scientific Congress 2016.

2.        Science is about people. Aside from building hardware and infrastructure, it is also about the development of talent and it is important for us not to lose sight of the mission-critical part of our strategy. During the government’s Budget debate earlier this year, we highlighted the need for paradigm shifts in the healthcare system, in the face of changing healthcare challenges. The world today sees increasing disease burdens, rising medical costs, as well as new and constantly evolving external threats. In Singapore, our healthcare needs have been changing as our population demographic profile changes. Our rapidly ageing population – where one in five people will be aged 65 and above by 2030 – has intensified care needs, and spurred the need to develop new models of care. Singaporeans enjoy access to a good healthcare system now, but we must rethink our approach and seek to transform our system to meet new challenges and importantly, ensure sustainability.

3.        This is where meaningful research and relevant education can play an important role to facilitate the transformation needed to tackle healthcare challenges for the future. The Congress theme, “Today’s Research and Education for Tomorrow’s Healthcare” is appropriate and timely as it embodies the on-going quest to transform and improve healthcare through scientific curiosity, innovation, creativity and education.

RESEARCH DRIVES MEDICAL ADVANCEMENT

4.        Singapore’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2020 (RIE2020) plan provides support for R&D efforts in the Health and Biomedical Sciences (HBMS) domain. The vision is for Singapore to be a leading centre that advances human health and wellness, while creating economic value for Singapore and Singaporeans.

5.        On the technology front, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has developed the infrastructure needed to facilitate collaboration among healthcare professionals, researchers, policymakers and analysts from different agencies. This includes linking data from multiple sources in real time to perform secure federated analysis, thus enabling research and analytical projects to cut across geographical boundaries for population-level studies. The new infrastructure is piloted by the Singapore Cardiac Longitudinal Outcomes Database (SingCLOUD) Study led by National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS), which investigates the long term clinical outcomes, quality of care and overall medical cost of care in cardiovascular patients across hospitals in Singapore. With this infrastructure, MOH can support not just NHCS but other stakeholders as well in future projects to improve care delivery for targeted cohorts and drive population health programmes.

6.        Academic medical centres (AMCs) like the SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC have a triple mission of caring for patients, pursuing relevant bench-to-bedside research and nurturing the next generation of healthcare professionals.

7.        Inter-agency partnership is pivotal. For example, the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) and the SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Precision Medicine, in partnership with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), are embarking on a project to build a genomic and clinical database of 20,000 healthy individuals and patients with heart disease. By studying the two cohorts’ genetic risk factors and clinical characteristics, researchers hope to understand the genetic and clinical markers that may predict an individual’s risk of developing heart disease.

8.        Driving downstream research through Health Services Research (HSR) is also one of the key focus areas in RIE2020. The SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC has formed a Health Services Research Institute, which pulls together the strengths of Duke-NUS and SingHealth institutions, to focus on projects with direct relevance to our population and clinical practice, such as in ageing and on models of care. I encourage SingHealth to collaborate with other healthcare clusters to scale up HSR solutions at the national level.

9.        Like other healthcare clusters, Singapore General Hospital (SGH) has been conducting trials to study the effectiveness of its transitional care programme. Clinician researchers put in place a comprehensive transitional care programme which included identifying high risk patients, intensive discharge planning and post discharge follow-up of patients to ensure that they remain well after leaving the hospital. The studies showed that the programme was effective and achieved between 20 to 30 per cent reduction of hospital readmission risk and length of hospital stay, as compared to the control group. In their next phase of research, the team will scale up the programme to support up to 5,000 high risk patients in the SGH campus.

NURTURING THE HEALTHCARE WORKFORCE

10.        Just as research is a driving force for medical advancement, education is the key to ensure a competent and continually improving workforce. Faculty members – doctors, nurses and allied health professionals alike – continue to teach, mentor, and find innovative ways to build a vibrant learning environment within the SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC. Some of these outstanding educators will be recognised at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Education Institute’s Golden Apple Awards Ceremony during the congress for their contributions to healthcare education.

11.        One of the awardees, Wong Kin Ling, Assistant Nursing Director from KKH, introduced a new training programme across over 1,800 KKH nurses to empower them in “anticipatory” care behaviours and enhance the patient experience. With the programme’s implementation, patient surveys indicated an 11 per cent improvement in nurses’ communication with patients and a 7 per cent improvement in nurses’ skills to provide emotional support.

12.        Dr Jason Lim Shau Khng from the SGH Obstetrics & Gynaecology Department is a young educator who develops curriculum for the junior doctors. He infuses simulation and technology in classes to bring clinical scenarios to life. He also goes beyond the formal curriculum to organise surgical simulation classes and emergency scenario workshops for the multidisciplinary O&G team.

13.        Another noteworthy educator is Dr Clement Yan, Senior Principal Physiotherapist at Sengkang Health. Deeply passionate about academia, Clement chose to teach physiotherapy at Nanyang Polytechnic. Two years ago, he decided to bring his educational experience back to the clinical setting to benefit young physiotherapists in the system, and has since been actively mentoring junior members of the team in preparation for the new Sengkang General and Community Hospitals.

14.        Kin Ling, Jason and Clement, along with other dedicated educators and teams, will receive awards tomorrow in recognition of their contributions. I commend all of them for their efforts to groom the next generation of healthcare professionals.

15.        It is indeed heartening to see that budding healthcare professionals are doing their part in education. Duke-NUS graduate Dr Chia Ghim Song, who is currently a SingHealth Radiology Senior Resident and Chief Resident in the Singapore Chief Residency Programme, sees the multiplier effect in teaching as one of the ways to contribute to healthcare. He plays the role of teacher and mentor to his juniors, and even created a formalised mentorship system between the first year and senior residents in diagnostic radiology to help young doctors navigate through their early medical training years.

16.        Duke-NUS recently marked an important milestone with the signing of the Phase III Agreement by Duke University and NUS. The agreement affirms the strong confidence that the university partners have in Duke-NUS and will further enable the school to build its strengths as a leader in innovative medical education, research, and in developing outstanding clinicians and innovators.

CONCLUSION

17.        The AMC’s strengths in research and education, and the commitment each of you carry as clinicians, innovators and mentors, will play an important part in driving the paradigm shifts needed to transform the future of healthcare in Singapore.

18.        It is now my pleasure to declare the SingHealth Duke-NUS Scientific Congress 2016 open. I wish everyone a fruitful and stimulating learning experience.

19.        Thank you.