Info-sharing, data analytics to tackle disease outbreaks in Singapore

 09-Jul-16, Today

Better sharing of information and use of data will be among the tools that Singapore will use to improve its handling of infectious disease outbreaks.

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After six months’ work, a taskforce that reviewed the national healthcare system’s ability to detect and manage infectious disease outbreaks in the wake of the hepatitis C outbreak at the Singapore General Hospital in 2015 proposed these in a set of 15 recommendations.

To pick up outbreaks in a more timely manner, the taskforce recommended setting up a surveillance system that can extract laboratory test results. Reports from laboratories will be automatically sent to the MOH.

Data analytics should also be beefed up to monitor the infectious disease situation, detect abnormalities and trigger alerts, the taskforce said. The ministry will also compile data from different sources and design an IT system that triggers warnings if there are abnormalities, so that investigations can promptly begin.

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 Elsevier APAC Healthcare Update