For the first time, three Academic Clinical Programmes (ACPs) – Anaesthesiology & Perioperative Sciences, Musculoskeletal Sciences, and Surgery – came together to organise the SingHealth Duke-NUS Surgical and Anaesthesia Congress.

Held in Academia, SGH Campus, on 4-6 August, the event had more than 1,000 participants in over 40 symposiums led by local and international experts, including Professor Paris Tekkis, a renowned expert in surgical health services research and Dr Archie Brain, a prominent anaesthesiologist who invented the laryngeal mask airway.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Prof Tan Ser Kiat (left), President, Singapore Medical Council and Emeritus Consultant, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Singapore General Hospital (SGH), announced that SGH has taken the first step to join the American College of Surgeons national Surgical Quality Improvement Program ® (ACS NSQIP ®).   A study has found that hospitals on NSQIP can prevent 250-500 complications every year.

Prof Tan shared, "The Programme will allow SGH to collect preoperative as well as 30-day postoperative data and benchmark it against 700 hospitals in the US and Canada. By doing so, areas for improvement can be identified."

Since July 2017, five surgical departments at SGH have started contributing to the database.   In addition, a cluster-wide Committee for Quality Improvement has been set up to look into the data, and implement sustainable measures to improve them."

There are plans to roll it out to other surgical departments in SGH, as well as Changi General Hospital, KK Women's and Children's Hospital, and Sengkang General Hospital over the next three years.

Associate Professor Kenneth Mak (above), Deputy Director Medical Services (Health Services Group), Ministry of Health, spoke at the event dinner on 5 August.   He highlighted the key shifts by MOH to keep healthcare sustainable.   He emphasized on "Beyond Quality to Value" and called for clinicians to carefully weigh cost-effectiveness of new technological advances in surgery.

Prof Mak said, "As surgeons, we are responsible to ensure our patients are properly guided to make appropriate informed decisions on the treatment options available to them.   It is important that we ensure that appropriate and cost-effective care is provided to our patients.

"While this does not constrain us from looking at the specific clinical needs of each patient and to make individualized recommendations for appropriate care, if we choose to depart from mainstream approaches, it is important that we counsel our patients properly and offer alternative treatment options within the proper context of a research study."

More highlights from the SingHealth Duke-NUS Surgical and Anaesthesia Congress 2017:

Cancer survivors performed a Zumba number at the Congress' opening ceremony

 
Dr Archie Brain (second from left) is a British anaesthetist best known as the inventor of the laryngeal mask. The LMA™ has been used over 300 million times worldwide in elective anaesthesia and emergency airway management. Dr Brain donated the prototypes of his invention to SGH.  

SingHealth Duke-NUS Surgical & Anaesthesia Congress Dinner, 5 August 2017