Embracing data sharing will be key to the success of Healthier SG

THE government’s Healthier SG initiative, unveiled in a White Paper in September and endorsed in Parliament in October, presents a roadmap to reform Singapore’s healthcare system. Central to the proposal is shifting Singapore’s healthcare model towards greater preventive care, empowering more individuals to take charge of their own health.

Singapore’s healthcare system has long been feted as one of the best and most efficient in the world, but with the incidence of chronic diseases still rising, an aging population and ongoing resource crunches within the sector, the need for a major overhaul to rethink how care is delivered is clear. What’s evident too is – the road ahead isn’t going to be easy.

As much as Covid-19 has paved the way for the wider adoption of technologies like remote patient monitoring, personal health tracking and telehealth, which would be key enablers of any national preventive health system, it has also raised questions around data sharing and trust that Singapore’s Ministry of Health will need to tackle to ensure the success of Healthier SG.