They include letting healthcare staff report
outbreaks anonymously, beefing up IT systems that track incidents
Healthcare
professionals will soon be able to anonymously report infectious disease
outbreaks, and IT systems used to track these incidents will be beefed up.
These are
some of the changes made at the recommendation of a task force set up last
December to strengthen outbreak detection and response in Singapore.
The
eight-member team's 15 recommendations also included measures to improve how
the Ministry of Health (MOH) monitors infectious diseases, as well as establish
a clear decision-making structure.
The team
also proposed changes to boost communication between healthcare institutions
and ensure such outbreaks can be properly handled even outside acute hospitals.
The task
force, headed by Minister of State for Health Chee Hong Tat, was established in
the wake of the hepatitis C outbreak at the Singapore General Hospital last
year.
Then, 25
kidney patients admitted between January and September were diagnosed with the
viral infection. Eight of them died.
Following
this, an independent review committee was set up to probe the causes behind the
outbreak. It concluded that poor infection control practices and a slow
response time were to blame.
The task
force was then created to strengthen Singapore's ability to detect and respond
to such outbreaks. It submitted 15 recommendations to Health Minister Gan Kim
Yong on June 30, all of which were accepted.
The team
comprised experts in infectious diseases, systems engineering and data science.
For
example, MOH said in a statement yesterday, healthcare professionals will be
able to anonymously report outbreaks "to encourage a culture of open
reporting".
"People
on the ground sometimes have a better sense of what is going on," said
Adjunct Associate Professor Lim Poh Lian, who heads the infectious diseases
department at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
"Doing
so takes away some of the barriers to why people might not want to come
forward, because they might not want to cause trouble."
The
ministry has designated its Communicable Diseases Division as the unit in
charge of overseeing surveillance of all infectious diseases and outbreak
reporting.
MOH has
also expanded the list of notifiable infectious diseases, which doctors are
required by law to report to the authorities, from 43 to 49.
The list,
which originally included diseases such as dengue and Ebola, will now also
include botulism, tetanus, leptospirosis, murine typhus, rabies and Japanese
encephalitis.
On the
technology front, the task force recommended that MOH improve its data analytic
capabilities to monitor the situation and trigger alerts if abnormalities are
detected.
MOH said
it will consolidate data from different sources and design the system to
trigger alerts if needed. It will also share the data collected with healthcare
institutions, after putting in safeguards to protect individuals' privacy.
"This
two-way information flow will help to improve surveillance and early detection,
enhance situational awareness across institutions, and encourage sharing within
the healthcare system for better infection prevention and control," it
said.
MOH had
previously announced the initial recommendations of the task force in March.
These included setting up a new National Outbreak Response Team, as well as
simplifying the process of notifying the authorities of infectious diseases.
Professor
Leo Yee Sin, who is director of the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology
and chaired the independent review committee, said the changes show a conscious
effort to continue improving our healthcare system.
"This
is quite a major change," she said. "Although the entire system in
Singapore is well known to be good internationally, we have to look into
continuing to improve all our processes."
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