The Singapore Healthcare Cybersecurity Ecosystem - Regulatory Approach and Challenges
Increasing digitalisation has improved accessibility and quality of care. Innovation in the digital health space, along with advancements in connected medical devices, coupled with increasing cyber attacks, have led to a greater need to ensure healthcare networks and data are adequately secured. We are finding ways to better tap on health data to benefit patient care, for instance, by establishing a comprehensive national repository of health records and facilitating proactive sharing of health information, as a critical pillar for Healthier SG initiative. Appropriate data and cyber security measures must be in place to foster trust with all stakeholders to achieve this. We adopt a multi-pronged approach towards bolstering our cybersecurity posture and hygiene: (i) empowering healthcare providers to secure their cybersecurity endpoints; (ii) protecting our network/devices from external exploits; and (iii) leveraging regulatory tools to engender a robust cybersecurity culture.