AI INNOVATION BALANCED WITH COORDINATION TO MAXIMISE HEALTHCARE IMPACT

We thank Dr Desmond Wai Chun Tao for his letter "Central coordination can reduce duplication in healthcare AI" (Feb 19). He pointed out that avoiding parallel developments would reduce duplication, strengthen governance standards, and accelerate improvements in healthcare.Given the rapidly evolving nature of AI technology, there can be multiple and competing untested solutions and approaches. It is useful for our public healthcare clusters to have the agility to experiment with and test emerging AI solutions and approaches to address ground needs.

Where these solutions prove their value and effectiveness, the Ministry of Health (MOH) works closely with the clusters to encourage cross-cluster collaboration, coordinate implementation and converge on a common approach across public healthcare.

Specifically for clinical documentation, MOH and the clusters are jointly reviewing the available tools and will decide on a single solution across the clusters soon.

Colin Lim
Chief Information Officer
Ministry of Health