As the oldest medical school in Singapore, the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at National University of Singapore (NUS) has accumulated a vast repertoire of information over the years.
Deriving digital value from these untapped data pools is a key aspect of the School’s digital transformation.
While digitalising legacy data is a common thread in the transformation of large organisations, what is unique about NUS Medicine's approach is that they adopted the mindset of becoming a ‘digital entity’.
Their transformation journey started from the top, with the senior management attending three courses at NUS-ISS –
. "Through these programmes, they learned how to adapt to external and internal changes within the organisation and turn these into pockets of opportunities,” said Professor Chong Yap Seng, Dean, NUS Medicine.
Subsequently, staff will be introduced to relevant courses that will equip them with the know-hows of adopting an agile approach to solve problems. The focus on skills development allows staff to pinpoint root causes from multiple angles to reduce redundancies. This would speed up the process of attaining the ultimate goal of digital transformation throughout the School.
“It is important that everyone in the organisation realises that their roles are the implementers of digital initiatives and digital transformation within the School,” Prof Chong explained. “This would help create a buy-in effect among the staff community and enable us to move towards a sustainable digital future in NUS Medicine.”
Innovation through data
Speaking on her experience attending the three courses at NUS-ISS, Associate Professor Lynette Shek, Vice Dean of Enterprise at NUS Medicine said, “The courses were enjoyable on the whole. We explored different ways of doing things and reimagined existing processes, which I found insightful.”
She added, “The instructors and facilitators were experienced and knowledgeable in their domains, and could help us contextualise the concepts. The practical exercises and workshops also helped to reinforce the lessons.”
Mr Joshua Ho, Senior Assistant Director at NUS Medicine’s Dean’s Office said, “What distinguishes courses at NUS-ISS from others in the market was the way the concept of data-driven innovation was packaged into three contiguous programmes that reinforced each other.”
The School chose NUS-ISS as the training partner for employee development as the institute had “a proven track record in delivering quality development and consultancy programmes to government and well-known local companies such as Singapore Airlines”. In addition, NUS-ISS is an appointed Continuation Education and Training Centre (CET) for the National Infocomm Competency Framework (NICF). “We trust NUS-ISS to deliver quality training for our employees, and that was a key consideration during our selection process,” he said.
Data-driven decision making crucial to thriving the complex digital world
As the world becomes increasingly competitive, complex and non-linear, NUS Medicine recognised that evidence-based and data-driven decision making is crucial for the School to continue to thrive.
“There is a wealth of data held within the School, and we want to develop a comprehensive understanding of them,” Mr Ho said. This, combined with the ability to harness other sources of data, as well as translate the relationships across data sets into insights, will drive more impactful education and research activities. “Ultimately, the goal is to unlock and deliver more value to our internal and external stakeholders,” added Mr Ho.
Outlining the three objectives for undergoing the NUS-ISS training programmes, Mr Ho explained that it was to first and foremost acquaint NUS Medicine’s senior management with the knowledge pillars that can drive the School’s digitalisation efforts. This would enable them to be the champions for their staff in the ongoing journey. The second objective was to equip the next level of employees who will be designing and implementing the digitalisation initiatives. Last but not least, the School hopes to catalyse the digitalisation process through action-learning by working on actual projects that will be implemented in the School within the respective functional areas.
Through this process, Prof Chong shared, “We hope to generate a competitive leverage for the medical school as it moves towards its vision of advancing and creating accessible solutions for the health and healthcare sector.” It would then enable the School to take on a proactive role in spearheading Singapore’s thrust in becoming an innovator, as well as a global leader in influencing future healthcare and public policies, he added.
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