Speech: Launch of SMU-SHS Graduate Diploma

Ms Yong Ying-I, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health;
Mr. Peter Seah, Chairman, SingHealth;
Prof Tan Chin Tiong, Deputy President (External Affairs), Singapore Management University;
Prof Rajendra K Srivastava, Provost and Deputy President (Academic Affairs), Singapore Management University;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen

Introduction
1.    Welcome to this morning’s launch of the SMU-SingHealth Graduate Diploma in Healthcare Management & Leadership, a programme that aims to equip and prepare healthcare professionals to assume important leadership roles.

Sink or Swim
2.    Historically, headships and leadership roles within the hospitals/institutions were thrust upon the most senior member of the team who would have to figure out the best way of running the department, all by him or herself. That was how I was first introduced to management when I was appointed as head of the orthopaedic department at SGH years ago.

Though I was honoured to take on a new leadership role, it was venturing into new territory for which I was not prepared. As a clinician, I think I’m competent (I hope) but when it came to running a department, I had a lot to learn on the job. I was practically thrown into the deep end of the pool. As HOD, I had to take on many differing roles that included caring for patients, teaching and mentoring junior doctors and trainees, promoting a culture of research and managing the department effectively. The most challenging aspect was having to oversee the ‘administrative and business’ aspect of things such as work and budget planning, manpower projections and setting strategic directions to ensure that the department is at the forefront of the specialty and yet is aligned to the hospital and nation’s mission, all while ensuring financial viability.

3.    What I went through was the traditional method of healthcare leadership appointment. There was no formal training structure or empowerment system for new leaders then, and many of us had little basic management skills.  We had to learn it the hard way, along with a lot of heartaches. We were literally thrown in at the deep end and had to swim or sink.

Refining the Leadership Model
4.    That model was neither the most efficient nor the best way of leadership preparation, and we have refined it over the years. As sophistication and complexity of healthcare demands increases exponentially with public expectations and costs rising in tandem, we need to train and groom newer and younger leaders and managers to meet these challenges, providing inspiring and effective leadership if we want remain relevant and at the forefront of healthcare. We must equip our healthcare professionals to not only be excellent clinicians, but also have excellent management and leadership abilities to bring our healthcare institutions several notches higher to the leading-edge, and provide thought leadership to shape the healthcare system.

5.    I had the honour of speaking and opening a few of the Clinician Leadership modules conducted by SMU and SingHealth previously, and it was at one of these sessions that the idea of running a more formal and structured programme occurred to me. I found the occasion to discuss this with Annie and our views were similar. We concurred on the importance of having formalised and structured programmes to train and equip the future generation of healthcare leaders. From there, the idea of a Graduate Diploma in Healthcare Management & Leadership was crystallised and as they say, the rest is history.

I see this programme as part of our Succession Planning strategy, which to me is also about Survival Planning for our system and organisation. We need to build a pipeline to ensure that there is a continuous supply of effective leaders at various levels to lead our institutions.

Nurturing Multifaceted Leaders for Benefit of Patients
6.    Our urgent priority is to nurture a new breed of multi-faceted leaders who can build, develop and lead people and organisations. They would not only have compassion to care but also the passion to excel. They play important roles in the overall healthcare system of Singapore. That includes making strategic decisions, leading other healthcare personnel and managing finite resources to maximise care and strengthen SingHealth’s 3 pillars of mission in service, education and research to support our goal of Academic Medicine.

7.    With the development of these highly-competent leaders, I believe SingHealth institutions, healthcare professionals and most importantly – patients – will stand to benefit. Good leadership provides inspiring direction. Leaders innovate and influence the way care is delivered, and pave the future path of the healthcare landscape.

SMU-SHS Graduate Diploma
8.    The launch of the SMU-SingHealth Graduate Diploma is another milestone for SingHealth and Singapore’s healthcare system. It is no longer the ‘sink or swim’ method that I was trained in. I look forward to seeing healthcare professionals armed with great clinical skills and management know-how to lead our institutions and raise the standards of healthcare.

9.    This is made possible through synergistic integration of medical and business disciplines in continuing education. The academic curriculum has been specially designed and developed by SMU and SingHealth faculty - clinicians will learn essential leadership and business management skills that all healthcare leaders should and must be equipped with.

10.    A faculty pool comprising leaders from SMU and SingHealth will impart their experience, expertise and knowledge to the clinicians. From SMU, their leading business lecturers and management experts; from SingHealth, our top physicians and organisational leaders. These are leaders in their professions with a wealth of experience to provide meaningful insight and relevance to the programme. More importantly, their experiences make them ideal educators in inspiring the right values necessary to groom outstanding healthcare leaders.

SingHealth Academy – Nurturing Leaders of Tomorrow
11.    Going forward, SingHealth will continue to nurture leaders from amongst our healthcare professionals through initiatives such as this. This will also be done through SingHealth Academy, our formal education collaborative with a focus on leadership and talent development. The Academy spearheaded the coordination of this graduate diploma programme together with SMU. Through SingHealth Academy and other strategic educational initiatives, SingHealth is better prepared for our mission of putting patients at the heart of all we do, now and for generations to come.

Collaboration with SMU
12.    I am proud to collaborate with SMU, our academic partner, for this graduate diploma programme. SMU has already made its mark as a highly-regarded and respected education institution that is innovative in its teaching methodology and pedagogy. We have shared a good working relationship with SMU since 2006, and many of our healthcare professionals have attended its executive training programmes. Looking ahead, I hope this could also the harbinger of even better things to come, leading possibly to an Executive MBA in Healthcare Management for the region and beyond!

13.    I am positive of the good this collaboration with SMU will bring to SingHealth, in equipping our practitioners to play a pivotal role in the healthcare landscape of Singapore.
 
14.    Thank you.