Singapore General Hospital Pte Ltd.

The Singaporean Ministry of Health is investing SG$200 million ($150 million) over the next five years to further implement new AI technologies across the island-nation state's health system. This new infusion to the MOH Health Innovation Fund supports the development and testbedding of technological innovations, including AI, making a "centralised push to scale them up into system-wide, national projects," the ministry said in a statement. It includes a generative AI project that automates record updating, which will be rolled out across the public healthcare system before end-2025. The MOH said it is committing to promote the use of genAI tools to "automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, such as documentation and summarisation of medical records." The ministry will also validate medical imaging AI that assists with breast cancer detection, which is eyed for progressive adoption as part of a national subsidised screening programme from end-2025. THE LARGER TREND There are ongoing government-backed initiatives across the Singaporean health system to build and integrate genAI models and applications. Last year, the national health tech agency Synapxe expanded its partnership with Microsoft to, among other projects, develop the Secure GPT for Healthcare Professionals, a common platform for developing large language models and genAI applications. The National University Health System also developed its own LLM-based chatbot called NUHS RUSSELL-GPT, which can summarise patient case notes and quickly write referral letters. Meanwhile, Singapore General Hospital has also taken an interest in applying genAI as part of pre-surgery assessments. The MOH is also promoting the uptake of medical imaging AI through the national radiology AI platform AimSG . Introduced last year, this vendor-neutral platform allows public hospitals to integrate validated AI into their workflows. Through this, two hospitals under SingHealth have adopted chest X-ray analysis AI. The National Healthcare Group is currently piloting the same AI in its cluster. Alongside announcing new AI investments, the MOH also shared its plan to launch a national genetic testing programme by the middle of next year, initially targeting Familial Hypercholesterolemia. Additionally, the MOH said it will improve the national governance on AI use in healthcare "to enable the development and deployment of more AI solutions while ensuring safe and secure care delivery to patients."

SINGAPORE, Oct. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Vivance, a leader in kidney care innovations, is proud to announce that the next trial phase of the wearable peritoneal dialysis (PD) device, Viva Kompact, has successfully concluded. The study was conducted at Singapore General Hospital (SGH), Singapore. The study data will be shared at American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Kidney Week, happening from 23-27 October 2024 at the San Diego Convention Center. Viva Kompact received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s breakthrough device designation in 2019 following the completion of the First-in-Human clinical trial. Earlier this year, the pre-pivotal trial was completed, focusing on evaluating the device's performance and safety parameters while being independently used by patients in their home environment. "Completing this trial is a momentous achievement for our team, patients and healthcare professionals who are equally passionate about advancing kidney care to the next level," said Suresha Venkataraya, CEO of Vivance. "We are excited to share our findings, which we believe will contribute significantly to advancing the possibility of dialysis anytime, anywhere." The trial results will be presented during oral sessions at Kidney Week by A/Prof. Marjorie Foo, the Principal Investigator and Senior Consultant, Department of Renal Medicine, SGH, who said, "I am excited to share the findings from this first-of-a-kind wearable dialysis device which underwent a trial at Singapore General Hospital. 10 patients were able to independently use the device and successfully complete at least one week of dialysis at their homes, with no device-related serious adverse events." The presentation will provide more information on the performance, efficacy and patient experience of using this wearable device. Mandar Gori, Chief Business Officer of Vivance, who also heads the Clinical Affairs function, said, "We thank all collaborators, especially our clinical advisors, who made the pre-pivotal trial of this FDA-designated breakthrough device possible. We are excited to showcase Viva Kompact along with our other products at booth #829 during the upcoming ASN Kidney Week." Media Contact: Priyanka Arya Senior Marketing Manager +65 6950 5011 [email protected] About Vivance Vivance, formerly AWAK Technologies, is a pioneering, patient-centric medical technology company with a mission to enhance the lives of people with kidney disease and their caregivers by providing solutions to deliver better outcomes and improve their quality of life. Headquartered in Singapore with offices in Los Angeles, United States and Bengaluru, India, the company is dedicated to the research, development and marketing of novel technologies in kidney care. For more information, please visit . SOURCE Vivance Pte Ltd WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM? 440k+ Newsrooms & Influencers 9k+ Digital Media Outlets 270k+ Journalists Opted In GET STARTED

To assist healthcare professionals with clinical documentation during consultations, a new tool is being piloted by SingHealth, Singapore’s largest health cluster. Note Buddy, described as an ambient digital scribe, is able to take notes of patient interactions conducted in the country’s four official languages – English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil. The tool, developed by SingHealth’s Division of Digital Strategy, records conversations with patients and transcribes them through speech-to-text software. It then produces structured medical summaries using genAI. Healthcare IT News paid a visit to the Diabetes & Metabolism Centre at Singapore General Hospital, a tertiary hospital within the SingHealth network, to see Note Buddy in action. Verbalisation and speech recognition Dr Goh Su-Yen, Senior Consultant at SGH's Department of Endocrinology, led a demonstration of the tool through a mock patient consult with a member of our team. Our colleague spoke in a mix of English and Tamil. Note Buddy produced a raw transcript of the consultation, followed by a summary with clearly defined sections such as medical history, social activities, ongoing symptoms, and even a potential prognosis for the clinician’s review. However, we observed that the system did not fully capture all the Tamil words spoken because the words were spoken too quickly or used too sparingly. Dr Goh said that if a clinician knows a patient's preferred language, they can select that option in Note Buddy. She went on to explain that multiple languages can still be detected and translated by the platform as long as they are spoken clearly in the majority of a sentence. The tool also reacts to prompts from the clinician. When our colleague stated that he had “pain in his middle to lower back”, Dr Goh responded with the medical term commonly used to describe that area (i.e., thoracic region). This detail was captured in the medical summary. Dr Goh pointed out how Note Buddy was able to recognise her as the doctor in the conversation and added that the tool would be able recognise input from other people – such as caregivers – who were also present during the conversation. Refinement from clinicians still crucial We did spot a minor inaccuracy in the summary. For example, the tool included the word “anorexia” in its summary after hearing that our colleague was taking Anarex to manage his back pain. He also mentioned that he was having digestive issues while taking the medication on an empty stomach. Dr Goh said that this could have possibly been caused by either the system capturing her advice that “it was always good to eat before painkillers” or the word Anarex not being articulated clearly enough. She emphasised the need for clear verbalisation and post-consultation checks to optimise Note Buddy. “This is why we make sure that clinicians are aware that [Note Buddy] documents conversations only. For a cancer patient, for example, I might have plans such as chemo treatment that were not fully articulated during the session. That’s when I can amend my notes after the consultation,” said Dr Goh. Improving patient care SingHealth launched Note Buddy so that healthcare professionals can focus on interactions with patients during clinic consultations and reduce the administration burden that comes with documentation. On top of note-taking and multi-language support, the tool’s features also include customisable prompts and secure notes retrieval. Clinicians can only access their own notes to maximise patient data confidentiality, and the platform removes notes from its system after 1 month for routine data protection. Dr Goh shared, "Using Note Buddy has allowed me to engage more meaningfully with my patients and reduce the cognitive burden of manually typing out what was discussed. I have found the notes captured by Note Buddy to be accurate. “The system can even selectively prioritise and capture the relevant and pertinent pieces of the patient’s medical history. I can now give my patients my full attention during our consultation sessions.” Note Buddy is currently accessible across all SingHealth institutions.