Debated in Parliament on 29 Nov 2022.
Dr Lim Wee Kiak asked the Minister for Health (a) in the past three years, how many incidences of IT system outage have occurred at local public healthcare institutions; (b) what measures are being taken to ensure that the national healthcare IT system will have adequate capacity for the planned system enhancements under Healthier SG; and (c) what helplines or support will be available to affected persons in case of an IT system outage or malfunction, especially for doctors and patients.
Mr Speaker, Sir, as explained in Parliament on 12 September and 20 October this year, we will continue to review our system design and architecture, and invest in capabilities to strengthen the resilience of our IT systems and reduce disruptions. We are also reviewing our downtime and business processes to minimise the impact during outages.
Our public healthcare institutions have business continuity plans that are activated in case of emergencies. Each institution's business continuity plan is supported by solutions with appropriate functionality and can be used when key applications are unavailable to allow public healthcare institutions to continue with the delivery of patient care services. For example, users would be able to view a patient's historical clinical information but may not be able to enter new clinical information into the system during the downtime. Patients should contact their healthcare provider for medical assistance as needed.
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