Healthier SG and Population Health – One Medical Student’s Foray into the Future of Singapore’s Healthcare

The summer of ‘23 marked my deep dive into healthcare policy and preventive medicine with MOHT’s Healthier SG Implementation Office (HSI). My time there gave me an unforgettable perspective on transformative healthcare from a policy lens; it was a far cry from my usual patient interactions and classroom lectures.

After an intense first year of medical school, I had every intention of embarking on an eclectic mix of summer adventures (or a well-deserved laze about at home). Yet, influenced by school teachings focused on the doctor-patient relationship, as well as the importance of collaborating with nurses and allied health professionals, I began to wonder how healthcare policy shaped these interactions to improve patient outcomes at the population level.

Seeking counsel from family and friends, I was fortunate to receive a suggestion from an ex-colleague at MOH (where I had worked at prior to commencing medical school). She suggested, out of the blue, for me to intern at HSI. The office was shorthanded at the time, and its raison d'etre of driving Healthier SG seemed to be aligned with my interests. Indeed, Healthier SG’s key tenets, such as wanting to forge strong and trusted patient-doctor relationships, and to empower patients to take care of their own health, strongly resonated with my perspectives as a medical student.

I began my HSI internship journey shortly after, eager to delve into the intricacies of healthcare policy and systems change, and to contribute what I could to this national initiative that would shape the future of Singapore’s preventive care landscape.

My internship coincided with the launch of Healthier SG nation-wide, and I was assigned a broad range of responsibilities from hosting lunch webinars to supporting the work on Healthier SG’s healthcare data governance. The latter included mapping out data sharing frameworks with service providers and community partners under Healthier SG, as well as ensuring that the rollout adhered to established practices. At the time, these were totally alien subject matters to me, and the learning curve was at times, quite steep. Yet in hindsight, I’d encourage everyone to embrace such baptisms by fire, themselves learning experiences in diligence, quick thinking, and adaptability—skills equally important for a medical professional. Plus, with technology and digitalisation already key enablers of better health (and only set to grow in importance), I’m glad for the insights I gained regarding the IT infrastructure and processes underpinning our healthcare sector.

One key lesson from my time at MOHT was interdisciplinarity, with my work on data governance requiring close integration with healthcare policy, as well as technical subject knowledge extending to logistics management. Embracing this mindset, I stepped up to draft a recommendation to repurpose existing infrastructure meant for vaccination operations to support Healthier SG efforts. This required a balanced and more importantly, sensitive view of health policy perspectives, operations, public communications, and manpower considerations and once more underscored the need for a deep understanding of these diverse perspectives.

Eventually, I was also entrusted to follow-up and coordinate the collaboration with the National Library Board on Healthier SG outreach and support matters, as well as to host several lunch webinars on Healthier SG for healthcare clusters and MOH. In tandem, these would help to bolster target audience support and take-up rates for Healthier SG. For me, this was directly applicable to medicine, where building good rapport and seeking to understand patients’ ideas, concerns and expectations go a long way in improving patient-doctor interactions and positively influence patient outcomes.

These varied and diverse projects drove home the importance of being agile – after all, we live in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, exemplified by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. To that end, my fellow interns and I were exposed to the relevant department meetings and huddles which bolstered our knowledge on the Singapore healthcare landscape, with their cross-functional nature across government agencies and stakeholders exposing us to interdisciplinary perspectives and opinions.

As I step into my second year in medical school with a renewed sense of purpose, my summer at MOHT feels like a pleasant dream, alas, one that was over far too soon. In hindsight, I was fortunate to have nurturing supervisors, that while demanding, never failed to offer close guidance and frequent check-ins, and I eagerly found myself taking up progressively challenging tasks and growing as a result of them. My MOHT colleagues were also unfailingly friendly and welcoming, and I sincerely hope to have the pleasure of working with them again in my future capacity as a healthcare professional.

To my supervisors and dedicated colleagues I had the privilege of working with, thank you: your kind mentorship in allowing me to learn and spread my wings will stay with me always.

And to those looking for a “transformative” experience at MOHT (pun intended), I’d encourage you to take up an internship with an open heart and mind. Standing at the frontiers of healthcare innovation in Singapore, with a safe, nurturing environment to pick up new skills and experiences, you’ll undoubtedly find a gem worth keeping. I definitely did.

Find out more about MOHT’s Internship Programme here.

Matthew with fellow Healthier SG Implementation Office colleagues at an MOHT event.

Matthew on his trip.