SPEECH BY MR TAN KIAT HOW, SENIOR MINISTER OF STATE, MINISTRY OF DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT AND INFORMATION & MINISTRY OF HEALTH, AT HEALTHTECHX ASIA, 6 MAY 2026

Richard Ireland, CEO, Clarion Events Asia,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Introduction

1.       A very good morning to everyone. I am very glad to be here today to share some of Singapore’s perspectives and experience, and also a chance for us to exchange views and learn from one another. In this space, all of us are just starting out. There’s a lot of excitement in terms of healthtech, AI, digitalisation, and forums like this really give us a chance to hear from one another- different perspectives, and to develop this ecosystem together. So I’m very pleased that we have among us here today, guests from the region. A very warm welcome to Singapore.

2.       Singapore became a super-aged society last year, over 20% of our population are past the age of 65, and this is not unique to Singapore. Others in the region, such as Japan and Korea, reached it some years back, while it is a matter of time for many other countries.

3.       Super-aged societies tend to face higher demand for healthcare services. Every country has its own approach to healthcare, guided by their own ambitions, priorities, and constraints. In Singapore, we have embarked on a journey to transform our healthcare to meet the growing healthcare needs of a super-aged society.

4.       While Singapore has one of the longest life expectancies in the world, the healthy life span of our population lags by about 10 years. So a longer lifespan, but the health span is about 10 years behind our lifespan. Hence, we are striving towards preventive, personalised and community-based healthcare. Moreover, the data tells us that it is far more cost-effective to keep people healthy in the community than to treat them in the hospitals, after they are unwell.

5.       We want to manage health upstream so that we can prevent big problems by identifying and managing small problems early. We want to tailor healthcare to individuals for better efficacy. And we want to base care in the community, moving away from the hospitals, so that people can recover faster and in the comfort of a familiar environment.

6.       We see technology, especially AI, to be a significant enabler in this transformation. It can support decision-making, automate tasks, and perform physical labour. With technology, we can meet this rising healthcare demand more effectively.

7.       And we are at an inflection point in history. AI is already being used for transcription, analytics, and supporting imaging diagnostics, while robotics are increasingly being used to assist surgeries and across various healthcare settings. But we need to get things right, even as we hasten to adopt technology.

Singapore’s Approach

8.       So Singapore’s approach to dealing with our super-aged society is to respond with AI-led transformation in healthcare, but do so in a way that is sensible. Let me describe our approach in three ways -  three ‘S’s.

9.       The first ‘S’ is Structure. We build strong foundations to support growth. At its core, we need data to drive progress. It must exist in digital form, it must be shared easily across different systems, and it must be accurate, because the wrong allergy or medication record can mean the difference between life and death.

10.     In Singapore, back in 2011, we built the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR) as our digital backbone to enhance care continuity. It allows healthcare providers to contribute and access key patient data from other healthcare providers, and it serves as the national central repository for key health information. All of our public health providers today contribute data to the NEHR, and increasingly, the family physicians or General Practitioners and other healthcare providers in the private sector are also coming onboard.

11.      As mentioned earlier, there are actually opportunities to enhance the NEHR. For it to truly serve as our national electronic healthcare record, we need the rest of our private healthcare providers to contribute as well.

12.     A few months ago, I passed legislation in the form of the Health Information Act, or HIA, to mandate data contribution to the NEHR. From September 2027, the HIA will progressively require all licensed health providers to contribute key patient health information to the NEHR. And looking ahead, we will explore Community Care providers tapping on the NEHR to provide support for residents under their care; moving beyond just healthcare providers, hospitals, clinics, laboratories, and possibly moving into the community. So there is a continuum of care across the whole healthcare setting.

13.     Having our data in a central location allows us to make meaningful use of it. Two years ago, we launched HEALIX, a comprehensive cloud-based analytics platform for the entire public healthcare sector. HEALIX deploys leading edge cloud-native tools, bringing together common data needs on a single platform, opening up collaborative possibilities and efficiencies to reap the benefits of data driven insights and AI. So build the structure, and put in place the foundation. And this is very important. I visit many different jurisdictions, visit many different healthcare providers and hospitals around the world. And we all get excited about technology and AI, but the more important part of it, before we get carried away by the hype and the excitement, is that we must make sure the foundation, the fundamentals are there. It’s like building a building, you want to be as tall as you can- reaching for the stars, but the foundation is important if you want to build tall and steadily. So over the last few years, we spent effort building that foundation here in Singapore. And now we are taking the next step to build up the building. Even as you build taller, we have to build safely.

14.     And that is where the second ‘S’ will come in- Safeguards. Technology holds great promise, but it can also pose great risks. We must strengthen our guardrails to manage these risks without stifling progress and innovation.

15.     So when we share data and connect systems together, risk is compounded. Given the sensitivity of health information, the HIA will also require health providers to implement cybersecurity and data security measures to protect this information.

16.     The decision was not an easy one to make, but it is a necessary one. We consulted widely before passing the HIA, and continue to engage healthcare and IT providers to continually refine implementation. To better support providers on this journey together, we maintain guidelines on the specific security measures to implement, and support the providers to engage qualified cybersecurity consultants to help them meet these requirements. So in Singapore, we do not just set the standards and guidelines, but we consult widely and put in place programmes and support measures so that we can adopt these guidelines together across the whole healthcare system.

17.     And Singapore is ready to partner with AI innovators. Earlier this year, we updated our Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Guidelines, or AIHGle 2.0, so that innovators across healthcare, research, and the wider industry have practical guidance on leveraging AI tech advancements while ensuring patient safety and responsible use of AI in healthcare. As technology evolves quickly and heralds new possibilities and approaches, we also continue to emphasise strong business and tech partnerships across the ecosystem through making available sandboxes to test and refine ideas. So there is structure within the foundation; safeguards to make sure that we have guardrails in place.

18.     This brings me to the third ‘S’: how we are Scaling innovation across the board. Singapore is serious about innovation. If there is clear Returns of Investment (ROI), we are prepared to implement ideas not just within a few clinics or a few hospitals – we are prepared to roll out across the board at the national level.

19.     We are investing in genomics as part of strengthening preventive care. Genetic testing can identify individuals’ pre-disposition to developing certain diseases, so that we can put in place timely interventions to reduce their risk. If individuals test positive for these hereditary illnesses, their family members may be at risk too. That is why we encourage these immediate family members – their parents, siblings, or children – to undergo subsidised genetic testing for selected diseases. So not just the programme, but cascading to their families- and all subsidised.

20.     Singapore launched the Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (FH) genetic testing programme in June last year, and we will be extending subsidies for Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer (HBOC) genetic testing from December this year. We are subsidising genetic testing for eligible individuals, we will also subsidise relevant appropriate downstream interventions. And that is really at the heart of preventive medicine- taking steps early when problems are not yet manifested in a big way, and it improves healthcare outcomes for the individuals and their loved ones. It’s the quality of life for them, quality of care for them, and of course, on a system level, reduces the hefty medical healthcare bills that we often see in so many other jurisdictions.

21.     Our clinicians have been experimenting with various AI use cases, including voice to text transcription and imaging diagnostics. For use cases with demonstrated ROI, we are prepared to implement them at the national level, as I said earlier. We want AI to augment and empower our healthcare professionals to enhance healthcare delivery, with patients as their priority. So technology should not be the preoccupation and priority of our clinicians and our medical team, and the frontline staff. Patients are their priority. The welfare of the patients, the care that they give to the patients, the support they give to their loved ones and family are the priority. And for us who implement the foundation, the fundamentals, the structures, the guardrails, is to make technology seamless for our frontline staff. Make it easy for them to use, standardise them, harmonise them, integrate them with our workflows and clinical process so that they can deliver services and care better. And that should be the ambition of all of us who are in this space- in the healthtech space.

Conclusion

22.     Today, I’ve shared with you how Singapore is thinking about enabling the next phase of HealthTech. We spent the last few years putting in place the fundamentals, the legislation, the regulation, the guidelines, the system, the processes, and we are now prepared to scale.

23.     We are focused on use cases with the right returns of investment, because we want to focus our resources on those interventions and those solutions that move the needle and make an impact for patients, their loved ones, and the Singapore healthcare system as a whole, and we are prepared to scale and innovate with partners. So we see a world in which AI augments humans, a world where tech partners and businesses come together to collaborate, innovate, and make meaningful changes, driven by twin engines of innovation and safety.

24.     With the right structures and safeguards in place, we are ready to scale. If the evidence is clear, we will take steps to enable implementation and support uptake, such as enacting legislation, putting in place the right regulations and guidelines, providing subsidies, support, and working across the healthcare ecosystem to drive decisive change.

25.     In this regard, we have been fortunate to learn from our counterparts from so many other countries and jurisdictions, and I am excited to learn more from many distinguished speakers here today.

26.     I hope everybody here has a meaningful conference, and I wish you all the best in your work. May we dream big and deliver impact.