2009 Update

National Activities

Singapore has been focusing on establishing a National Standards Programme in which the SNOMED CT National Release Centre is an integral part. While Singapore has long been a leader in the use of technologies in some parts of the health sector, MOH Holdings Pte Ltd have now embarked on the development of major new initiatives including electronic health records at a national level; increasing the level and capabilities of computerization within the subacute and primary care sectors to support the transition of care.

Implementation of a national shared EHR is a means to transform healthcare services towards patient-centric care delivery. The intent is to provide health professionals with the right information, at the right place and at the right time, as the patient moves across care settings in the national healthcare system. The goal is to develop National Standards that address current and emerging healthcare requirements that enable the bi-directional automated information exchange between healthcare services.

Implementation plans and other activities

While there are currently significant islands of standardisation in Singapore’s health sector, there is a significant gap between the current state and that required for a safe and effective national EHR and beyond. Standardisation, however, is a substantial endeavour. Decisions about which standards to use, and how to use them are typically taken both explicitly and implicitly by a wide range of health sector stakeholders.

The National Standards Programme is being developed by MOHH. It has a vision to ensure that the standards used in Singapore:

Are clinically driven
Are swift to develop and easy to use
Fully sypport the development of the electronic health record and national health projects
Promote rapid deployment and development of the EHR functionality;
Provide a platform for long term semantic interoperability and research informatics
Are internationally recognised

The National Standards Programme is based on a pragmatic approach to Standards Adoption within Singapore which is guided by the National Data Standards Governance Framework, endorsed by the MOHH Clinical Advisory Group in Dec 2008. The principles include building on current capabilities and allowing progressive adoption and more importantly gradual clinical uptake aimed at improving the quality of the data entered.

The pragmatic approach to standards adoption needs to cater for the following scenerios which exist in the Singapore Health Infosystems:

Extensibility to support progressive clinical adoption from

Unstructured free text
Structured free text
Structured and local codes
Natively supports National Standards structure and code sets
Or a combination of two or more or the above

Extensibility to support progressive technical adoption from

No source system changes possible and alignment to standards via structure and code maps
Source system enhancement limited by the system capabilities
New systems
Or a combination of two or more or the above

The Standards vision and the pragmatic approach to standards adoption require the development of standards that are based on Clinical requirements as articulated in the Singapore Logical Information Model (LIM) but are architecture and technology agnostic. This will then allow the same data standard to be implemented in different architectures and transport layers while allowing a progressive clinical adoption of the data fields.

Currently our major focus is on the semantic interoperability of diagnosis data and Medication data across the different healthcare sectors using SNOMED CT International Release supported by the Singapore local extension. More



About IHTSDOSNOMED CTJoin UsNewsProjectsPublicationsMembersContact UsHome
Search Print FAQ
Australia Canada Cyprus Denmark Estonia Iceland Lithuania Malta New Zealand Poland Singapore 2010 Update 2009 Update 2008 Update Slovak Republic Slovenia Spain Sweden The Netherlands United Kingdom United States	2009 Update National Activities Singapore has been focusing on establishing a National Standards Programme in which the SNOMED CT National Release Centre is an integral part. While Singapore has long been a leader in the use of technologies in some parts of the health sector, MOH Holdings Pte Ltd have now embarked on the development of major new initiatives including electronic health records at a national level; increasing the level and capabilities of computerization within the subacute and primary care sectors to support the transition of care. Implementation of a national shared EHR is a means to transform healthcare services towards patient-centric care delivery. The intent is to provide health professionals with the right information, at the right place and at the right time, as the patient moves across care settings in the national healthcare system. The goal is to develop National Standards that address current and emerging healthcare requirements that enable the bi-directional automated information exchange between healthcare services. Implementation plans and other activities While there are currently significant islands of standardisation in Singapore’s health sector, there is a significant gap between the current state and that required for a safe and effective national EHR and beyond. Standardisation, however, is a substantial endeavour. Decisions about which standards to use, and how to use them are typically taken both explicitly and implicitly by a wide range of health sector stakeholders. The National Standards Programme is being developed by MOHH. It has a vision to ensure that the standards used in Singapore: Are clinically driven Are swift to develop and easy to use Fully sypport the development of the electronic health record and national health projects Promote rapid deployment and development of the EHR functionality; Provide a platform for long term semantic interoperability and research informatics Are internationally recognised The National Standards Programme is based on a pragmatic approach to Standards Adoption within Singapore which is guided by the National Data Standards Governance Framework, endorsed by the MOHH Clinical Advisory Group in Dec 2008. The principles include building on current capabilities and allowing progressive adoption and more importantly gradual clinical uptake aimed at improving the quality of the data entered. The pragmatic approach to standards adoption needs to cater for the following scenerios which exist in the Singapore Health Infosystems: Extensibility to support progressive clinical adoption from Unstructured free text Structured free text Structured and local codes Natively supports National Standards structure and code sets Or a combination of two or more or the above Extensibility to support progressive technical adoption from No source system changes possible and alignment to standards via structure and code maps Source system enhancement limited by the system capabilities New systems Or a combination of two or more or the above The Standards vision and the pragmatic approach to standards adoption require the development of standards that are based on Clinical requirements as articulated in the Singapore Logical Information Model (LIM) but are architecture and technology agnostic. This will then allow the same data standard to be implemented in different architectures and transport layers while allowing a progressive clinical adoption of the data fields. Currently our major focus is on the semantic interoperability of diagnosis data and Medication data across the different healthcare sectors using SNOMED CT International Release supported by the Singapore local extension. More