technology

Cybersecurity (Amendment) Bill

My speech during the Second Reading debate on this Bill on 7 May 2024.

The Cybersecurity (Amendment) Bill seeks to extend the regulatory reach of the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) by updating the existing Cybersecurity Act of 2018. This includes the broadening of oversight across newly classified critical information infrastructure (CII) and the introduction of stringent compliance and reporting requirements, all aimed at addressing the escalating challenges within our digital environment.

In this age of digitalisation, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure can pose a significant threat to our national security and well-being. Examples of cyber attacks around the world abound.

Cyber attacks worldwide

In December 2015, Ukraine experienced a significant cyberattack targeting its power grid, which resulted in widespread electricity outages across several regions. This was one of the first known successful cyberattacks on a power grid. The attackers, who were sophisticated and well-coordinated, used phishing schemes to install malware on the networks of several regional electricity companies. They were able to gain control of the company’s systems and shut down substations, cutting off power for approximately 230,000 people for several hours. This incident not only disrupted everyday life but also exposed the vulnerability of essential infrastructure to cyber threats and the potential for state-sponsored cyber warfare.

In May 2017, the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) was struck by the WannaCry ransomware, a global cyberattack that infected over 200,000 computers across 150 countries. The NHS faced significant disruption as the ransomware encrypted data on infected machines, demanding payment to restore access. Approximately 19,000 appointments and operations were cancelled, and patients had to be diverted from emergency rooms which were unable to access critical digital services. The attack highlighted the importance of cybersecurity hygiene, as it exploited a known vulnerability in older Windows operating systems that had not been updated with available patches.

Here at home, in 2018, hackers infiltrated SingHealth’s healthcare system, stealing personal data of 1.5 million patients. This included information like names, addresses, and dates of birth. Additionally, medical records of 160,000 patients, including that of the Prime Minister, were also compromised. The sophistication of the attack, the type of data targeted and the resources needed for such a breach suggested that this cyberattack may have been state-sponsored.

Each of these incidents serve as stark reminders of the chaos and danger posed by cyberattacks. They underline the need for robust cybersecurity measures and the ability to rapidly respond to and manage cybersecurity threats, particularly when critical national infrastructure is at risk.

Operational intervention by CSA

Under this Bill, the CSA is empowered to regulate, monitor and enforce compliance through penalties and directives. I would like to ask the Minister if the Bill grants the CSA, or any other national body, explicit authority to take over the operations of critical systems if their owners fail to secure them adequately, despite directions from the Authority. The current provision in Section 23 allows the Minister to direct organisations to take measures to counter serious and imminent threats but does not explicitly grant the authority to directly take over operations of critical information infrastructure. This explicit authority may be necessary in situations where immediate action must be taken to prevent or mitigate a cybersecurity threat that poses a critical security risk.

In contrast, the Bus Services Industry Act 2015 is more explicit in its wording about operational intervention. Section 30 of that Act grants the Land Transport Authority (LTA) the power to make a “step-in order” in certain circumstances. This order allows the LTA to take over the operations of a licensed bus operator or appoint a step-in operator to do so.

The Bus Service Industry Act also specifies the powers and functions of the step-in operator, such as having the same powers as the original licensee and requiring the licensee to provide access to premises, assets and employees. The Cybersecurity Act is less specific about what the emergency “measures and requirements” may entail.

Incorporating similar provisions in the Cybersecurity Act could provide a clearer legal framework for the CSA to directly intervene and take control of critical information infrastructure when necessary to protect national security or the lives of Singaporeans. This would ensure that the government has the necessary tools to respond swiftly and decisively to imminent cybersecurity threats.

In addition, while the CSA’s regulatory and enforcement roles are crucial, in instances where national security is at imminent risk, are there any additional protocols for bringing in the SAF’s Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS) to manage the cybersecurity defences of critical information infrastructure?

Does the Minister see it necessary to develop a framework that enables either the CSA or the DIS to respond rapidly and directly to imminent threats to our critical information infrastructure, ensuring that operational control can be swiftly transferred in a crisis? Having this operational backstop is desirable precisely because cybersecurity attacks have high potential severity and could unfold very quickly.

This will require the strengthening of public-private collaboration to ensure the seamless integration of state and commercial resources in fortifying our national cybersecurity infrastructure. In addition, the CSA will need to ensure it has the necessary expertise to undertake such responsibilities when called upon to do so. The agency needs to be adequately staffed and equipped with the requisite skills and technology in order to effectively manage and mitigate cybersecurity threats. Such an arrangement will be a long-run investment in our own capabilities that is worth making, both in defensive terms but also to enable public-private knowledge diffusion.

Extraterritoriality

Regarding the new sections 7(1A) and 16A(1), how will the government enforce its extraterritorial judgments on overseas providers of critical information infrastructure if the owner is not in Singapore? Can the Commissioner take enforcement action outside of Singapore? If we aren’t able to enforce the laws overseas, what purpose do these extraterritorial provisions serve?

Monitoring

In section 29A on monitoring, relying primarily on examining historical records and conducting ad-hoc inspections may not be sufficient to provide the real-time, continuous monitoring needed to keep pace with rapidly evolving cyber threats. More proactive oversight measures, potentially including direct access to providers’ systems, may be required for effective supervision. WannaCry, the global ransomware attack in 2017, rapidly spread across computer systems over seven hours, while the 2015 Ukraine power grid hack led to electricity outages lasting up to six hours. These are events that unfolded in less than one day. If we really want to monitor with a deterrent view in mind, we need to have operational integration and develop our backstop capabilities.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Mr Speaker, while the Cybersecurity (Amendment) Bill makes important strides towards enhancing our national cybersecurity posture, our approach must remain adaptable to the realities of digital warfare and capable of decisive action in times of emergencies.

Sir, I support the Bill but I look forward to the Minister’s responses to my concerns.

Global leadership in AI

5 Feb 2024, Parliament

The government unveiled its National AI Strategy 2.0 report (NAIS 2.0) last December. The report outlines Singapore’s plans to harness artificial intelligence (AI) for the public good, focusing on enhancing AI capabilities, addressing potential risks and fostering a thriving AI ecosystem.

I appreciate the hard work that many policymakers have put into writing this report, including their efforts to consult with industry.

However, I believe that Singapore needs a more comprehensive AI industrial policy and clearer outcomes for each industry. We need a strategy that aims to make our nation the global leader in selected AI fields.

Under NAIS 2.0, the government’s main role revolves around enabling an environment for AI to grow and enhancing the efficiency of public agencies. While these are important, the government certainly has the resources and capability to do much more. In this AI-driven era, we need the government to intercede more proactively to create a world-leading AI industry. Simply leaving things to the free market may not produce the desired results because of the constraints of our local private sector and our small domestic market. It will risk forfeiting some promising economic growth opportunities that AI can bring for our nation.

Singapore’s small population should not deter us from global AI leadership. Historical industrial successes have been built on strategic government interventions, such as Taiwan’s support of TSMC, which played a pivotal role in its journey to becoming a global semiconductor manufacturing juggernaut.

Today, I will address NAIS 2.0’s AI labour policy and advocate for a strong AI industrial policy so that Singapore can aim for global leadership in selected AI domains.

AI labour policy

Let’s begin with the AI labour policy. The goal in NAIS 2.0 to generate 15,000 AI jobs sparked a blend of enthusiasm and apprehension among Singaporeans. Concerns linger that, as has happened in the past, foreigners may dominate lucrative positions — including leadership positions — leaving Singaporeans with mainly the routine and lower-paying jobs. This could impede our citizens’ career advancement alongside the advancing AI landscape.

NAIS 2.0 has three labour planks. Scaling up AI-specific training programmes; scaling up technology and AI talent pipelines; and remaining open to global tech talent.

Will the government commit to ensuring that a sizable majority of at least two-thirds of the 15,000 new “AI practitioner” jobs will go to Singaporeans?

I acknowledge the importance of global AI talent. However, there must be a clear differentiation between exceptional global talent and the average foreign tech worker. We should welcome the former, but should avoid importing too many of the latter, as they may end up competing with Singaporeans who can do the job just as well. Any global talent that we bring in must be expected to transfer their skills to locals, not just use Singapore as a springboard for greater pursuits in other countries. This can be done through tying company grants to the achievement of knowledge transfer, or through limited-term foreign work passes tied to the training of Singaporean workers.

The AI playground is level, with a highly collaborative open-source community. The core techniques and frameworks are mature enough and reasonably accessible through papers and code. With the right training, mentorship and opportunities, Singaporean talent can deliver as well as anyone in the world.

To raise a body of local AI talent, AI-training programme places and talent pipelines must be focused on Singaporeans. We need to plan ahead and start training all our students early in AI — not just students who are academically strong in the sciences and mathematics.

For mid-career workers, hands-on interaction with AI tools is one of the best forms of training. The government should expand the scope of SkillsFuture Credits to cover expenses for subscriptions to AI assistants like ChatGPT Plus or Github Co-pilot to accelerate their productivity. This will level the playing field for Singaporeans with less means to pay for such subscriptions. Paid models like GPT-4 have been assessed to be significantly better than their free counterparts, and we should give our workers more opportunities to use the best models.

Moonshots in industry

Next, on industry. It was once unclear if it were possible for humans to reach the moon. But US President John F. Kennedy made a speech to Congress in 1961, rallying his nation to achieve the goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth before the end of that decade. And NASA’s Apollo 11 mission achieved it ahead of schedule on 20 July 1969.

A “moonshot” is an ambitious, exploratory and groundbreaking target that has the possibility of spurring breakout growth. We need moonshots in AI, which NAIS 2.0 appears to lack.

The government has the resources and capacity to take on more risks on a longer timescale to pursue high-reward moonshots. These could catalyse future engines of growth. But first, the government must catch the vision and have the determination to make our country number one in our chosen AI domains.

Achieving some of these AI moonshots has implications on our economic security and even our sovereignty.

Advances in AI rely on large, high-quality data sets. We must ensure that foreign tech firms and governments do not end up extracting our data overseas to build AI products, which then get sold back to Singaporeans. This will allow such firms to profit immensely while local expertise flounders.

Currently no global framework governs cross-border data flows and ownership. This allows predatory dynamics to continue between countries and companies. Once market dominance is achieved, network effects and the dynamics of chasing a moving target make it almost impossible for new entrants to catch up.

If we are not careful, Singapore may become only a consumer of such platforms, while the economic benefits and the best jobs go overseas. Singapore should avoid this by proactively building comprehensive local data sets for homegrown AI development.

Management of moonshots

We should pursue a few ambitious, publicly-funded moonshot projects. These projects must prioritise transparency and align their outcomes with the national interest, ensuring that economic gains directly benefit our citizens.

A new government-owned AI startup will be needed to catalyse this moonshot, and I will refer to it as the AI Catalyst Corporation. It should be independently run with commercial dynamism, yet be ultimately answerable to Singaporeans.

What constitutes a well-chosen moonshot? I would like to propose five key principles:

First, its products or services must directly benefit Singapore and Singaporeans. Second, it should have export potential and become part of Singapore’s economic growth engine.

Third, it needs to have “moats” — which are durable advantages to prevent it from being quickly outcompeted or swallowed up by global tech giants.

Fourth, there must be a genuine unmet global market gap that Singapore has advantages in tackling. And fifth, the industry should be ripe for fundamental disruption, not just incremental improvements.

Healthcare AI as a moonshot

Healthcare AI could be a moonshot that Singapore can aim for. I will present the case for this, and answer the five questions in reverse order.

Is healthcare ripe for fundamental disruption? Yes. Healthcare systems worldwide are under strain due to ageing populations and chronic disease burdens. Healthcare institutions tend to treat diseases late in their course, when symptoms are severe and care is expensive. Yet major conditions like obesity, heart disease and cancer, are driven by shared underlying factors. This outdated care model no longer aligns well with scientific reality. Healthcare AI, supported by population-scale data, has the potential to predict risks and intervene early to significantly improve health outcomes.

This will require a reorganisation of healthcare delivery that focuses on early prevention and action. Singapore has started this journey through the Healthier SG programme. Let’s turbocharge it with healthcare AI.

Second, is there a genuine unmet global market gap? Yes. Electronic health record (EHR) systems remain fragmented worldwide. Even in the US, no dominant player exists in healthcare AI. The players are fragmented among various entities like EHR providers, tech firms, life sciences companies, insurers and hospitals. Those with vast healthcare data may not have efficient AI models, and vice-versa.

Singapore, on the other hand, has a unique opportunity to build a population-scale healthcare data ecosystem tailored for AI. We can more easily overcome the coordination challenges that may oblige larger ecosystems to build healthcare AI components in a piecemeal fashion. A platform called MOH TRUST already aggregates multiple healthcare research datasets, and the National Electronic Health Records (NEHR) system aggregates clinical data across Singapore. So the government is already collecting and coordinating healthcare data. What is missing is the impetus to use this data to drive the future of AI through an industrial policy.

Third, are there “moats” against global tech giants? Yes. Healthcare AI depends a lot on having local healthcare teams and physical sensors to collect and manage clinical data. AI can serve as an assistant to local healthcare workers and give Singapore an edge over others. Singapore has already signalled its commitment to generating comprehensive data, like in the SG100K genome study. Healthcare also has more durable data moats than other AI spheres like linguistics, where SEA-LION’s defences against global tech giants in low-resource languages is uncertain.

Fourth, does healthcare have export potential? Yes, as a public good, healthcare AI can benefit other countries while facing fewer sovereignty concerns. Debates are taking place globally about where large AI systems are trained and deployed. However AI, when used for healthcare, which can potentially benefit everyone, is less likely to attract controversies or nationalist and protectionist tendencies.

By assuming a leadership role in this field, Singapore can export our healthcare AI innovations, generate much international goodwill and even use this to advance our foreign policy.

And finally, does it benefit Singaporeans? Yes, through improved public health, economic growth and global technological leadership.

Singapore has other comparative advantages in the race for global leadership in healthcare AI. We have a robust healthcare system, the SingPass digital ID, cross-domain talent and a history of government investments and interventions in specific industries.

Singapore’s demographic diversity provides rich healthcare data across ethnicities and ages. Healthcare AI can catalyse the development of adjacent fields like computational genomics and precision medicine.

Singapore has the ingredients for a breakthrough in Healthcare AI. To succeed, the government needs to take the lead in putting these ingredients together.

What should we do in Healthcare AI?

To realise a healthcare AI moonshot, Singapore must combine existing ingredients into a coherent strategy. We should aim to export specialised services and medical diagnoses, not raw data.

We can create an advanced AI model trained on genetics, protein biomarkers, histology and electronic health records. We should aim to radically improve our ability to prevent disease, intervene and make causal inferences.

A multi-modal healthcare AI foundation model moves beyond narrowly specified “point-solutions”. By having a single foundation model for, say, both chest X-rays and retinal image interpretation, we can overcome data fragmentation across medical specialties and make it increasingly possible to uncover foundational principles of diseases.

As for electronic health records, the NEHR system is valuable, but it needs to be AI-ready in order to consolidate complex datasets such as histology imaging, genetic data or protein data. We should create comprehensive longitudinal patient histories spanning years. Existing data needs to be sufficiently standardised to serve AI analysis without a massive amount of preprocessing.

An AI Healthcare Company under the AI Catalyst Corporation could drive this moonshot. This AI Healthcare Company needs its own versatile multi-modal foundation model integrated with the NEHR. This will enable large-scale analysis to identify at-risk groups, conduct preventative screening and perform early treatment. It will also enable high-quality acute care, as a simultaneous expert in genomics, biology, general medicine and the specialties.

The AI Healthcare Company could build the world’s best multi-modal healthcare AI and healthcare dataset. This could establish an unmatched resource — built in Singapore, for the world.

Local AI startups can also benefit from this foundation model to build their own applications to sell to the world.

Just like how OpenAI’s access to ChatGPT queries provides unmatched data for improving their future large language models, the first company to create a versatile multi-modal healthcare foundation model would likely find itself at the frontier of healthcare AI.

Conclusion

Mr Speaker, in conclusion, a healthcare AI moonshot strategy will position Singapore as a global leader in AI by leveraging our unique capabilities in consolidating biomedical and healthcare data. It is a national approach designed to secure data sovereignty, navigate data-privacy concerns, ensure Singapore captures the benefits of AI, and maximise public by-in. This isn’t about picking winners; it is a proactive strategy to ensure Singapore thrives in the AI-driven future to benefit all Singaporeans.

I have presented just one example of a moonshot that Singapore could pursue. There may be other moonshots of equal or greater merit. I welcome open debate on selecting moonshots, but we cannot pull our punches if AI is truly the new industrial revolution.

Singapore possesses the talent, resources and infrastructure needed to compete for the top spot in selected AI fields. Achieving it requires political will, a readiness to embrace risks and proactive intervention by the government. We can do it, and we must do it, for the benefit of Singapore and Singaporeans.

Tackling the healthcare manpower crunch and using healthcare technology

The world is facing a severe manpower crunch in health and social care. The CEO of the International Council of Nurses (ICN) said last year that “the scale of the worldwide nursing shortage is one of the greatest threats to health globally.” The ICN estimates that due to existing nursing shortages, the ageing of the nursing workforce and the effect of COVID-19, up to 13 million nurses will be needed to fill the global nurse shortage gap in the future. The Southeast Asia region alone is facing a shortfall of 1.9 million nurses, according to the World Health Organization.

Singapore needs another 24,000 nurses, allied health professionals and support care staff to operate hospitals, clinics and eldercare centres by 2030. Our rapidly ageing population is causing demand for health and social care to increase dramatically. Yet Singapore is facing a high attrition rate of nurses. One of the reasons why nurses in Singapore have reported to be resigning is because of their heavy workload and stress, which is caused in large part by the manpower shortage.

Boosting local healthcare manpower

Urgent measures are needed to address this manpower shortage. There are no quick fix solutions. We need to encourage more Singaporeans to choose health and social care as a career so as to boost the pipeline of future professionals in this field.

I highlighted in my speech on Singapore’s COVID-19 response in March that nurses in Singapore are often still seen as the assistants to doctors instead of being professionals in their own right. We need to boost the image of the profession and enhance societal esteem for nurses and allied healthcare workers. Nurses should be granted more autonomy and entrusted with higher level responsibilities.

Schools should highlight careers in health and social care early to students. Professional associations should come up with materials and videos highlighting the careers in this field and share these with schools to disseminate to their students. I agree with Dr Tan Yia Swam’s call just now for a repository of articles on navigating the healthcare system — and I hope she starts her blog again so that we can continue to tap on her knowledge. Career guidance should start early in secondary one. This is so that students’ interest in health and social care careers can be sparked early and they can start working towards choosing suitable subjects as they move up to secondary three.

As I mentioned in my speech on the education system in April, schools should move away from sorting students according to their grades and towards allowing students to take subject combinations based on their interests. This is how we can continue to raise up a generation of future healthcare professionals who love what they do and are passionate about their work.

IHLs (institutes of higher learning) could develop guidebooks to help local students prepare themselves for their eventual applications to these institutions. These guidebooks could include information on the subjects they need to take in school, the grades they need to obtain, and the co-curricular and extracurricular activities they need to get involved in to best prepare themselves to get admitted to the institution and major of their choice. For example, this guide could recommend that students take certain subject combinations, join the science club, find opportunities to conduct scientific research, write and publish research papers, or work as an intern in a health or social care institution during their school holidays.

It should provide guidance on how to search out these opportunities and work with professional health and social care associations to create these opportunities for students. These could all help our students focus early on pursuing their area of interest in health and social care and better prepare them for their eventual careers in this exciting field. It is too late to attempt to put together a portfolio just before applying for university or polytechnic. Yet this is often what many students do, because they go through secondary school with little idea of what they are interested in, and do not participate in activities that prepare them for their future careers.

Students from more well-resourced families, on the other hand, often obtain this guidance from their parents and are provided with opportunities for hands-on experience through their parents’ professional connections. In order to level up our society and capture a wider pool of talent in our population, we need to make this information available to every student.

However, changing public perceptions and increasing public awareness about health and social care careers takes time and requires a concerted effort from various stakeholders, including the government, the media, schools and parents. We must continue to develop targeted initiatives to address the concerns of healthcare workers, such as work-life balance, remuneration and career progression.

Technology as a force multiplier in healthcare

Having said all this, it is simply not sustainable to rely on increasing manpower supply alone to meet the health and social care needs of our nation. Considering our own ageing population in Singapore, which will require greater care needs, if we are to staff all our health and social care institutions with the doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and care workers to meet the ideal healthcare worker-to-patient ratios, the health and social care sector will likely take up a disproportionate share of Singapore’s manpower and will starve other sectors of the economy of skills and talent.

Technology can play an important role in boosting productivity and augmenting manpower. In my adjournment motion in this House in 2013 on easing the cost of healthcare, I said that technology should be used as a force multiplier in the face of limited manpower in our healthcare system. This is even more so now than it was a decade ago.

Healthcare technology — or HealthTech — is a fast-growing and promising field which must be developed further in Singapore. Transformational technologies are being developed now which will revolutionise the way healthcare is delivered in the future. These include artificial intelligence-driven diagnostics that can detect diseases early and make more accurate diagnoses more quickly than conventional means. For example, researchers at MIT have developed an AI model called Sybil that can predict a patient’s risk of lung cancer within six years using low-dose CT scans.

The emerging field of precision medicine has the potential to transform healthcare and is being used in the treatment of diseases like cancer, cardiovascular diseases and genetic disorders. It can potentially improve patient outcomes by providing more targeted and effective treatments, reducing adverse reactions to medications, and optimising disease prevention strategies. I note that there is now a Singapore Precision Medicine initiative aiming to generate precision medicine data of up to one million individuals, integrating genomic, lifestyle, health, social and environmental data. This is a very positive development.

There are also other healthcare technologies that are not as “deep tech” as what I mentioned earlier but are already in the market and can provide a boost to the productivity of healthcare workers, enhance the patient experience and improve health outcomes.

The National Electronic Health Records (NEHR) system is a major, multi-year HealthTech initiative. According to the MOH website, there are 2,231 healthcare institutions participating in the NEHR as of 5 May 2023. This list appears to be growing every day and I note there has been a marked increase in the number of participating healthcare providers since the start of this year.

The Straits Times reported on 2 May that the “private sector has been slow to participate in the NEHR since it was launched in 2011”. According to a PQ reply by Minister Ong Ye Kung to Mr Leon Perera in March 2023, only about 30% of licensed private ambulatory care institutions have view-access to the NEHR and less than 4% are contributing data.

A 2020 survey and paper by Clinical Asst Prof See Qin Yong of Changi General Hospital entitled “Attitudes and Perceptions of General Practitioners towards the NEHR in Singapore” found that solo-practising GPs who were more than 40 years old and who had practised for more than 15 years were less likely to view and contribute data onto NEHR. Doctors who regarded themselves as less computer savvy and those who perceived that an inadequate level of technical or financial support was available were also less likely to use the NEHR.

The Health Information Bill was supposed to be tabled in Parliament in 2018 to make the contribution of data to the NEHR mandatory for licensed healthcare groups after a grace period. However, this was deferred in the wake of the cyberattack and data breach of SingHealth systems in July that year, in order for technical and process enhancements to improve the security posture of the NEHR to be implemented first. Most of these security enhancements were supposed to be completed by last year, according to SMS (Health) Janil Puthucheary.

Can I ask the SMS if all the security enhancements to the NEHR have now been implemented? I understand that MOH aims to table the Health Information Bill in the second half of this year. Is MOH reaching out to doctors to address concerns they might have about the security of the patient data they will be required to contribute to the NEHR? How is MOH assisting the remaining GPs and dentists to get on board the NEHR?

Former Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said in 2017 that “patients can realise the full potential of the NEHR only if the data is comprehensive”. He added that “for NEHR data to be comprehensive, every provider and healthcare professional needs to contribute relevant data to it.”

Given the NEHR’s goals and the fact that $660 million has been spent on the system so far, it is imperative that the full roll-out is implemented without undue delay, while addressing the valid concerns of doctors.

We need to tap on the knowledge and experience of GPs who have been practising for many years, especially as we move forward into the Healthier SG initiative, which will see GPs playing a key role in promoting healthy lifestyles and providing preventive healthcare.

Technology can be used to help GPs focus on what they do best. Many private clinics find it a challenge to manage the dizzying array of IT systems that they need to manage their clinics, and connect to CHAS (Community Health Assist Scheme), Healthier SG and the NEHR. I note that there is a technology subsidy scheme available to help GPs to implement Clinic Management Systems that are compatible with Healthier SG. However, implementing these systems still requires a lot of time and effort on the part of GPs and their clinic assistants — time which they simply do not have, if they want to focus on direct patient care.

MOH should explore the possibility of offering and financing an “IT manager-as-a-service” to GPs and dental clinics. This would enable them to benefit from the expertise of IT professionals, who can assist them in resolving their healthcare IT-related issues. By providing a point of contact for IT matters, GPs and their clinic assistants can then concentrate on delivering high-quality clinical care to their patients. This solution would not only enhance the efficiency and productivity of GP clinics but also help them stay current with the latest technological advancements.

Conclusion

Urgent action is needed to tackle the shortage of manpower in health and social care institutions and grow the pipeline of Singaporeans entering this field. I have proposed some ways in my speech on how we can do so and I hope that MOH and MOE will consider them.

To boost productivity and augment manpower in the health and social care sector, we need to double down on the use of technology as a force multiplier, and assist providers to implement and use these technologies.

The world celebrates International Nurses Day this Friday May 12, which is the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. I would like to take the opportunity to say a huge thank you to all our nurses in both public and private healthcare institutions in Singapore. We appreciate your selfless service, sacrifice and care for our people!

This was a speech I delivered in Parliament on 9 May 2023 during the debate on Supporting Healthcare.

geraldgiam.sg now mobile-enabled

For readers who surf on the move, I’m pleased to announce that my blog is now accessible from your mobile devices. Just go to https://geraldgiam.sg and you’ll be presented with a mobile-friendly page.

Credits to WordPress PDA & iPhone for creating this handy WordPress plugin. Any feedback on this is most welcome, particularly if you’re using an iPhone or Blackberry (since I’ve only tried it using my old Nokia phone and PDA).