by Eulana Weekes

St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN): The Director of Health Institutions- St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr Jenson Morton, participated in a high-level workshop in Singapore focused on the digitisation of public health systems, aimed at improving efficiency and access to health services. 

The workshop, which brought together health leaders and experts, explored cutting-edge technologies, data-driven solutions, and strategies that underpin the functioning of the health sector in Singapore. In speaking to WINN FM, Morton recalled some commonalities between St. Kitts and Singapore, saying the sessions gave a practical understanding of both the challenges and the solutions that can work in the local context.

“The trip to Singapore was to participate in a workshop on the digitisation of public health, but it also served as a few things. One, it served as an exposition for the pinnacles of development in health digitisation, of which Singapore is the global leader. So it was an amazing opportunity to see it. One of the benefits of seeing how it functions in Singapore is that the country itself, in terms of land size, is not very large. It’s only a bit larger than St. Kitts. It has a lot of people, has like 5 billion people, but you’re able to see how a health system over a not very large area, how it can be constructed to be able to best serve its people. The other things that were pluses were that they were able to show their path to digitisation from the ground up, and all of the different areas that had to be assessed and perfected in order for them to reach where they are. Even though we are not as advanced in our health digitisation journey as Singapore, the plus with it is that our country being a smaller country and the fact that the trials and tribulations that they would have gone through it’s well well-documented, we don’t have to make the same mistakes on our path to digitisation that they made, and our small size allows us to adopt the technology a lot faster.”

During the workshop, participants explored apps used by Singapore to manage its public health system, including those focused on emergency medicine and preventive medicine, the doctor mentioned.

Dr Morton shared, “Now, the other thing is that it also allowed us to get exposure to the myriad of supportive apps that go into the overall management of the wider sphere of public health digitisation. So that includes everything from apps that deal with emerge...