New centre to provide training in healthcare IT

SINGAPORE — Nursing students from Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) will be trained at a new specialised centre to manage IT solutions in healthcare, such as electronic medical-record systems used in many hospitals here.

Launched yesterday with its partner, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the centre aims to seamlessly connect classroom learning with healthcare settings in hospitals and polyclinics, by making available healthcare innovations — such as the electronic medical-record system, wireless vital-signs monitoring system and even an automated medication-management system — which are currently used by local hospitals. Touted as Singapore’s only training centre that encourages shared learning of innovative healthcare IT solutions among students as well as the healthcare and IT industries, the NYP-HIMSS Centre of Excellence (Healthcare IT) will be located at the polytechnic’s School of Health Sciences.

Senior Minister of State (Health and Manpower) Amy Khor, who was at the launch, said the centre would be able to equip students with “necessary skills” to operate in a healthcare industry which is increasingly leveraging on IT.

The centre also has a simulated intensive care unit (ICU) and inpatient wards for students to apply their nursing skills and knowledge in managing patients during their simulation-based training programmes in a more real-life setting.

“It will ... better prepare them as they transit (to) work in the healthcare industry, in terms of using and applying the advances of information technology,” said Dr Khor.

About 2,500 students will receive training yearly as part of their curriculum from January.

NYP has invested S$850,000 in the centre’s infrastructure, while 11 organisations have sponsored healthcare equipment and software.

NYP’s partner in the centre, HIMSS, is a non-profit organisation which focuses on healthcare IT and management systems.

Several nursing students said they had restricted access to electronic medical records and could operate the machines only under the supervision of nurses during their training stints in hospitals previously.

With the centre’s availability of an electronic medical-record system, sponsored by novaHealth, they are now able to practise keying in information, such as a patient’s vital signs, during training sessions.

“In hospitals, there are electronic medical-record systems which we are not given access to … because we have to maintain patient confidentiality. It’s good that, over here in the school setting, we are able to address those issues and learn how to make use of such systems,” said Ms Khairunnisa Jumat, 28, a second-year nursing student.