Singapore's Smart Nation Program and potential lessons for the European Union's Digital Decade program

Francis Pereira, Bernard Lee and Elizabeth Fife

32nd European Regional ITS Conference, Madrid 2023: Realising the digital decade in the European Union – Easier said than done? from International Telecommunications Society (ITS)

Abstract: Although Singapore's Smart Nation initiative is relatively new, this paper will assess some of enablers, challenges and early successes of the program, with the view of potentially providing a roadmap for the European Union's Digital Decade program. Specifically, this paper will analyze; i) the infrastructure requirements necessary to support the services; ii) the legal reforms required to enable some of the services; iii) the effectiveness of government initiatives and subsides to encourage adoption of such services. In these respects, and in regards to Digital Decade program, health initiatives in the this paper also will examine, as a case-study, how one of the program's health initiatives was able to effectively deal with the SARS-CoV2 crisis, by rapidly allowing health-care providers to switch to tele-heath as an alternative delivery system. However, this was made only possible in part through two major government programs, the first initiated nearly 2 decades ago, and exemplifies the infrastructure and service platforms requirements necessary to support the Smart Nation Program. The various government policies created to accelerate adoption of this health initiative was guided by its experiences with past initiatives where it faced some challenges and obstacles to achieving the desired outcomes. Specifically, one of the programs, Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS) is the technology agency for the public healthcare sector and was created in 2008 as a cohesive approach to the development and management of IT systems in public healthcare with the objective of improving the Singapore population's health and health administration by integrating intelligent, highly resilient, and cost-effective technologies with process and people. Currently, IHiS supports the operations of 46 public healthcare institutions including acute hospitals, specialty centers, and polyclinics, as well as over 1,400 partners such as community hospitals, nursing homes, general practitioner clinics and voluntary welfare organizations. In November 2016, it merged with Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) Holding's Information Systems Division essentially assuming the role of the technology agency for Singapore healthcare1. In general, the experiences from past broadband and information infrastructure initiatives has helped instruct the Singapore government on the factors for successful implementation of the Smart Nation program, specifically i) public policies that stress user-centric design for the goal of universal inclusion; ii) Infuse Digital Literacy into National Consciousness; iii) Private-public partnerships that empower Community and Businesses to Drive Widespread Adoption of Technology; and iv) Promote Digital Inclusion by Design.

Date: 2023
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