John Abisheganaden’s Post

Happy to see AI & Digital innovation in healthcare taking front and center stage stage at this year’s NHG Singapore Health & Biomedical Congress (SHBC). Great to see FACE AI (A*Star, IHPC) being showcased at HEAL- which is our Health Empowered by AI 🚀 Launchpad booth. Shoutout to Tai Hou Tng Rick Goh Bingjie Wu Menghan Zhou and the IHPC team. FACE AI really “made you look” & the collaboration among a multidisciplinary team of scientists & clinicians is inspiring! Jia you ! 💪 Yih Yng Ng Jonty Heaversedge Dr Ang Yee Gary, MBBS MPH (Non-medical qualification MBA) Pei Xuan Chua, MPH Eugene Fidelis Soh Joe Sim National Healthcare Group Lynette Ong Jing Fang Ong Eric Wong Benjamin Seet Cher Heng Tan Jing Jih Chin

This is an excellent initiative. Kudos to everyone for making this happen.

I agree it’s also much more about how well you live than how long you live. Compression of morbidity. While we are pushing the boundaries of lifespan, more importantly can we improve health span, and active span? Live longer better? Or “die young as late as possible”?

Great to see FACE AI (A*Star, IHPC) being showcased at this year’s Singapore Health & Biomedical Congress (SHBC), which is at the HEAL (Health Empowered by AI 🚀 Launchpad) booth. Shoutout to Tai Hou Tng, Rick Goh, Bingjie Wu and the amazing IHPC team. FACE AI is like magic! Thanks for the partnership with National Healthcare Group Jonty Heaversedge Dr Ang Yee Gary, MBBS MPH (Non-medical qualification MBA) Yih Yng Ng Eugene Fidelis Soh Pei Xuan Chua, MPHMenghan Zhou

Undiagnosed Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) is a hidden health crisis. It is commonly part of the metabolic syndrome- diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and obesity. It can be easily treated with CPAP- Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. There are very few medical conditions that can be treated with the flick of a switch and OSA is one of them. I’m delighted to see our landmark publication on the cost effectiveness analysis (CEA) of CPAP for the treatment of OSA in Singapore. We showed that OSA treatment in Singapore is highly cost effective, with an incremental cost effectiveness ratio or ICER at USD$13,822 per DALY. Just for comparison, the ICER of treating hypertension in Singapore is estimated at USD$45,400 per DALY. I hope this paper will help move the needle on public healthcare policy towards CPAP treatment for OSA. National Healthcare Group Dr Ang Yee Gary, MBBS MPH GDFM GDMH GDFP (Dermatology) Fanwen Meng Kelvin Bryan Tan

An AI-based virtual voice assistant successfully bridges a care gap for heart patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) with a high degree of patient satisfaction, according to research presented at the ESC Congress 2024. Based on AI and natural language processing, a new application was developed for the virtual voice assistant, 'LOLA,' which was able to make more than 40 phone calls in 2 hours, allowing the team to gather follow-up information and act accordingly. Results from the TeleTAVI study indicate that it is possible to provide excellent care virtually, without substantially increasing resources. The virtual voice assistant also facilitated rapid patient discharge. Knowing that automated close follow-up was available, 40.1% of patients were able to be discharged within 24 hours of the procedure and 32.9% between 24 and 48 hours. Patients generally had a favorable response to the virtual system. The satisfaction score was 4.68/5 and 89% of patients reported good or very good satisfaction. In total, 86% of patients said that they would recommend the use of LOLA. It is heartening to see how an AI-based virtual voice assistant is assisting and adding Value to medical care.

Ever wondered how fast your brain ages? The pace at which it ages can vary significantly among individuals, leading to a gap between the estimated biological age of the brain and the chronological age (the actual number of years a person has lived). In a new trailblazing study published in Nature Medicine, researchers at the Global Brain Health Institute at Trinity College Dublin led a wider team of international colleagues to develop innovative measures of brain aging using advanced brain clocks based on deep learning of brain networks. The study revealed that populations from countries with greater inequalities generally exhibited older brain ages. The study found that structural socioeconomic inequality, air pollution, and the burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases were significant predictors of increased brain age gaps, especially in more disadvantaged countries. Participants with a diagnosis of dementia, particularly Alzheimer's disease, exhibited the most critical brain age gaps. These findings underscore the role of environmental and social exposomes in brain health disparities.

I am heartened to read the latest findings from the National Population Health Survey 2023 that showed that Singaporeans heeded the call of the previous year’s survey for them to pay attention to their own health and to adopt healthy lifestyle habits. The frequency of daily smoking fell from 9.2 per cent in 2022 to 8.8 per cent in 2023, continuing the downward trend of smoking rates over the last 10 years. The prevalence of poor mental health decreased – from 17 per cent in 2022 to 15 per cent in 2023. The number of Singaporeans getting themselves vaccinated against influenza and pneumoccocal diseases rose significantly too- Self-reported influenza vaccination went up from 18 per cent in 2022 to 21.7 per cent in 2023, while the take-up rate for pneumoccocal vaccines rose from just 26.5 per cent in 2022 to 35 per cent in 2023. And health screening was found to be more prevalent among older adults aged 70 to 74 years, with two-thirds of them having been screened for diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol. Screenings for some cancers had also increased, with that for colorectal cancer up from 38.1 per cent in 2022 to 41.7 per cent in 2023. This shows that Singaporeans continue to make healthier choices in 2023, and our efforts to promote healthier living are moving the needle in the right direction. Well done 👏

More S’poreans exercising, getting their shots; fewer smoking in 2023: National Population Health Survey https://lnkd.in/g5Znf8At

Artificial intelligence (AI) is all around us. But is AI okay in health care? Will you be comfortable if healthcare providers used AI responsibly within proper governance, ethical and regulatory frameworks? A survey by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center on American consumers of healthcare found a majority of people to be comfortable with it. The poll of 1,006 people found: -75% believe using AI to minimize human errors is important. -71% would like AI to reduce wait times. -70% are comfortable with AI taking notes during an appointment. -66% believe AI should improve work-life balance for health care providers. What could AI’s first steps in healthcare be? These could include a diverse array of areas from administrative tasks like appointment scheduling to more analytical domains such as financial modeling, and even extend to preliminary work in clinical research. The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center is piloting the Microsoft Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) Copilot application. It uses conversational, ambient and generative AI to securely listen to a provider-patient visit and draft clinical notes in the patient’s electronic medical record. Rather than the provider typing the notes during the visit, they can focus on the patient then review and edit the notes afterward. As of July 1, Ohio State expanded ambient documentation access to all providers in outpatient settings. In the first two weeks of expanded use, 100 clinicians regained 64 hours of time and satisfaction scores have improved from patients who say their conversations with their physicians were more valuable.