{"id":74642,"date":"2026-08-06T06:44:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T22:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=74642"},"modified":"2026-08-06T06:44:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T22:44:59","slug":"ai-becomes-a-non-starter-in-healthcare-if-there-is-inherent-distrust-in-its-use-ong-ye-kung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=74642","title":{"rendered":"AI becomes a non-starter in healthcare if there is inherent distrust in its use: Ong Ye Kung"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SINGAPORE \u2013<!-- --> Use of artificial intelligence will be doomed to fail if there is inherent distrust that forces healthcare institutions to seek patient consent for every piece of data, even anonymised ones, to train systems, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Speaking in Parliament on Aug 5, Ong added: \u201cIt becomes a non-starter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">He was replying to questions from Non-Constituency MP Andre Low on whether consent would be sought before using patient data to develop the Singapore Medical Foundation AI Model (SIMFONI), and what patient data would be used.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Announced on July 9, SIMFONI aims to help clinicians better diagnose conditions such as diabetes, high cholesterol and eye diseases by addressing a gap in the data used for AI training.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/ai-models-tuned-to-spore-patients-clinical-data-being-built-under-new-national-drive?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"inline font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"typography-test-id\">Most AI models used in healthcare<\/span><\/a> today are trained on data from Western populations, which can limit the accuracy and relevance in Singapore\u2019s clinical settings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Ong warned against distrusting the system entirely, urging a balanced approach and recognition that AI is a breakthrough technology that can address some of Singapore\u2019s stark challenges of an ageing population with a rising patient load.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cTo do so, we will need to use the data that we have, but take the necessary precautions. Make sure that it\u2019s anonymised and de-identified. And we started this process some years ago,\u201d he said, adding that there have been no data leaks so far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cIf we start off thinking that we distrust this system entirely, and therefore, let\u2019s scope down the data to be used to train models, let\u2019s not believe that they can really be anonymised and de-identified because there can be leaks and traceability, and let\u2019s seek everyone\u2019s consent before we can use, it becomes a non-starter,\u201d Ong told the House on Aug 5.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">He said SIMFONI aims to develop AI tools to provide clinical decision support for managing chronic conditions, prioritising conditions with high disease burden in Singapore and feasibility of development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The Ministry of Health (MOH) will start with a couple of speciality areas and settings in the public healthcare sector, and if that is successful, the coverage will be expanded to more speciality areas, and also possibly, to private practitioners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Yip\u00a0Hon\u00a0Weng\u00a0(Yio Chu Kang)\u00a0asked whether MOH will announce specific safeguards to detect and mitigate the risk of automation bias, when doctors may gradually defer to AI decisions or recommendations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Ong said MOH takes a careful user approach in the deployment of AI, warning against the current hype.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cNever treat AI as a hammer going around looking for nails&#8230; or a solution looking for a problem,\u201d he said, adding that the technology also needs to take into account the local context and medical protocols here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cWhen you deploy it, you have to deploy in accordance to clinical protocols.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Finally, AI is also not something that users plug into a socket, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Thought must be given to integration with existing systems and workflows to allow clinicians to make the final judgment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cIt\u2019s early days&#8230; all this hype will subside to a more realistic level, where people are more judicious, thoughtful and even sober about using AI,\u201d said Ong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cAnd we tell ourselves, why wait for that process? Why don\u2019t we start off being sober and judicious? And that\u2019s the approach that MOH is taking.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/politics\/ai-becomes-a-non-starter-in-healthcare-if-there-is-inherent-distrust-in-its-use-ong-ye-kung\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE \u2013 Use of artificial intelligence will be doomed to fail if there is inherent distrust that forces healthcare institutions to seek patient consent for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/74643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}