Healthcare professionals lauded for outstanding contributions to medical excellence in Singapore

29 Jun 2010

New National Outstanding Clinical Quality Activist award introduced to recognize healthcare professionals working to promote and uphold clinical quality

1. Nine outstanding healthcare professionals, consisting of eight doctors and a nurse, were the recipients of the annual National Medical Excellence Awards (NMEA) at the awards dinner held on 29 June 2010. In its third year, the NMEA is a national level award given out by the Ministry of Health that recognizes exceptional individuals and teams who have shown outstanding achievements and excellence in medicine, clinical research, clinical quality, training and mentorship. The distinguished recipients come from a wide array of disciplines such as nephrology, neonatology, ophthalmology, obstetrics and gynaecology and emergency medicine.

2. A new award category, the National Outstanding Clinical Quality Activist award has been introduced to recognize individuals who have contributed significantly towards upholding clinical quality and patient safety, resulting in improved healthcare outcomes for Singapore. This is also the first individual award category to be opened to all healthcare professionals, which includes nurses, pharmacists and other allied health workers.

NMEA 2010 Award Recipients

National Outstanding Clinician Mentor Award

3. The National Outstanding Clinician Mentor Award is presented to Professor Ho Lai Yun, Senior Consultant at the Department of Neonatal & Developmental Medicine at Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and the Department of Child Development at KK Women's & Children's Hospital (KKH) and Associate Dean, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore at the Singapore General Hospital campus. Professor Ho, who was also appointed Master, Academy of Medicine, Singapore from 2006 to 2008, is the pioneering force behind Singapore's many nationwide perinatal health programmes and the child development programme, as well as an advocate of child welfare and protection. He played an important role in continuing medical education and professional development programmes. He was conferred the Outstanding Paediatrician in Asia Award in 2003 for his contributions to education and improvement in child health and development in the region. A dedicated teacher and mentor, he had during the course of his career, worked 

tirelessly to guide and train many young clinicians, preparing the next generation of doctors for the challenges of the medical profession.

National Outstanding Clinician Award

4. Professor Vathsala Anantharaman, Head of the Division of Nephrology at the National University Hospital is the recipient of the National Outstanding Clinician Award. This award recognizes her as a master clinician and also her exceptional contributions to the field of renal transplantation in Singapore, Professor Vathsala was at the helm of many milestone transplantation surgeries conducted in Singapore, putting Singapore on the world map as a reputable centre for kidney transplant surgeries. She was also involved in shaping healthcare policies which have helped transplant patients manage the cost of expensive immunosuppressive drugs as well as optimizing the use of such drugs in transplant patients through research studies.

National Outstanding Clinician Scientist Award

5. The National Outstanding Clinician Scientist Award is presented to Professor Wong Tien Yin, Director of the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI). Professor Wong first proved, by generating novel research knowledge, that the imaging of the eye could be useful to understand basic mechanisms in diseases such as stroke, heart disease, diabetes and hypertension. He has since built up a multidisciplinary team to translate that knowledge and is now developing innovative diagnostic platforms to link eye imaging to diagnose human vascular and metabolic diseases.

National Outstanding Clinical Quality Activist Award

6. This inaugural award is presented to Associate Professor Tan Kok Hian, Chairman of KK Women’s and Children Hospital (KKH) Division of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Mrs Nellie Yeo, Chief Quality Officer at the National Healthcare Group (NHG).

7. Associate Professor Tan is an outstanding champion for clinical improvement and quality, particularly in the area of perinatal care. His efforts have led to significant enhancements to clinical efficacy and better patient outcomes such as KKH’s Integrated Perinatal Care Project, which resulted in the hospital achieving one of the world’s lowest maternal and perinatal mortality rates. His involvement in many quality improvement projects has also led KKH to achieve almost $3 million in cost savings in the last financial year. 

8. Mrs Nellie Yeo has dedicated tremendous efforts in raising and sustaining the standards and quality of Singapore’s healthcare sector. Working tirelessly for almost two decades, Mrs Yeo, who is a nurse by training, had led the drive for Singapore’s public hospitals, polyclinics and national centres to attain Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation, a significant milestone for the public healthcare sector. She was also responsible for promoting clinical leadership in driving local collaborative projects, ranging from systems redesign in voluntary reporting of incidents, establishing platforms to promote patient and family participation in care, leadership safety walkabouts to gather feedback from the frontline workers on how management can help them deliver better care to cross functional workgroups on enhancing medication management and reducing infection rates.

National Clinical Excellence Team Award

9. The National Clinical Excellence Team Award is presented to the team from the National University Hospital comprising of Professor Lim Tow Keang, Dr Malcolm Mahadevan, Dr Irwani Ibrahim and Dr Jason Phua for their outstanding contributions in bridging the gap between clinical knowledge and practice through the use of evidence-based medicine. Non-invasive ventilation methods for respiratory care in the emergency department were successfully implemented, and hugely benefited patients with severe respiratory distress by effectively halving mortality rates.

10. The citations for the winners of the NMEA 2010 can be found in Annex A and more information about the NMEA can be found in Annex B.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH

29 June 2010

• Annex (97 KB) 
  List of NMEA citations and NMEA Information sheet.