Speech by Mr Chee Hong Tat, Minister of State for Health, at the 4th National Assistive and Rehabilitation Technologies Student Innovation Challenge 2016, 30th March 2016

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.

1.    I am happy to join you at the 4^th National Assistive and Rehabilitation Technologies Student Innovation Challenge 2016.

2.    This annual event, now in its fourth year, has become a useful platform to bring together healthcare professionals and students from our universities, polytechnics, and ITE. The objective is to generate new ideas and come up with innovative approaches to improve the quality of life for seniors and people with disabilities.

3.    The solutions can also help their caregivers. For example, in 2011, a team of Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) students developed a prototype that enables radiographers to better capture chest X-rays for wheelchair-bound patients. The prototype was eventually improved and licensed to Fujifilm Asia Pacific last year. NYP also filed a local patent for it. For their innovative and meaningful project, the team emerged champions among 51 teams at the 7^th i-CREATe in South Korea in 2013. We hope to encourage more of such innovative ideas from our students and institutions.

4.    Our teams have also done well at the international stage of the competition. For the past three years, Singapore has sent in a total of 22 winning teams to participate in i-CREATe, and 12 of the 22 teams have won awards, including Gold, Bronze, Best Presentation, Best Poster, Best Ergonomic Design, Merit and Public Choice Awards.

5.    More than awards, it is the spirit of innovation and enterprise that we want to nurture amongst our people.  Looking ahead, many improvements in the healthcare sector will be driven by innovative ideas and best practices from other sectors beyond healthcare, including ICT, robotics, design, data analytics and behavioural science.  To transform our care models, we have to be open to new ideas and find ways to support them and scale up the adoption in our healthcare institutions.   

6.    One key challenge for Singapore is our ageing population.  Over the next 15 years, the number of elderly citizens in Singapore will double to more than 900,000.  If we continue business as usual, it will not be sustainable as we will need to take care of a larger number of seniors with a smaller local workforce.  We need to harness technology and innovation to transform how rehabilitation, caregiving activities and community support can be provided. An example is the All-in-one Exerciser designed by students from ITE College Central. This innovation allows patients to continue their rehabilitation in the comfort of their home and at a lower cost. Patients may recover faster with frequent exercise at home; reducing the need to make frequent visits to clinics or day rehabilitation centres.

7.    Our healthcare professionals will also benefit from advances in technology as it helps to alleviate many of the challenges they face today. An example is the ‘eye gesture controlled-wheelchair’ designed by Ngee Ann Polytechnic students. This wheelchair allows patients with little or no arm movements to control the wheelchair using their eyes. This empowers patients to move around independently and reduces the physical strain on caregivers to push wheelchairs. Another innovation is the 3D Printed Prosthetics by Singapore Polytechnic students. With its voice control and modular capabilities which enables flexible movements, patients with disabilities will be able to access this technology to perform daily activities independently.

8.    Technology in healthcare needs to be applied beyond the traditional pharmaceutical R&D and medical devices that are focused on the curative and diagnostic part of the healing process. The continuum of care is equally important to transit patients from acute hospitals to stepdown community care facilities and eventually back to their own homes. This journey to recovery requires tremendous sustained support from caregivers.  The innovations that we see here today would hopefully help to provide much of this support.

9.    With Singapore’s strong background in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, I see many opportunities for our schools and youth to rise to the challenge and put Singapore on the world map for healthcare and rehabilitation technologies.  Through research and innovation, we can support new start-ups in health-related products and services, generate economic value and create good jobs for Singaporeans in the global economy.  By successfully tackling our ageing and healthcare challenges, we can export our solutions and maximise the economic value for Singapore. 

10.    To conclude, I would like to extend my best wishes to all participating teams and for those of you who are selected to represent Singapore at the international competition, fly our flag high and do us proud.

11.    Thank you.