Digital transformation journeys

A: When I first started in this area, the focus in Singapore was on using enterprise-wide systems to automate in-patient and out-patient processes across hospitals. The key issues were around streamlining processes and automation efficiencies.

Over time, the conversation shifted towards electronic medical records. These records hold potential to link across healthcare providers to address fragmented healthcare services, a common challenge in many countries.

Today, with the growth of data from healthcare systems, we’re looking at AI that builds on these data. The idea is not to replace the judgement of doctors but to build models and use data to augment their decisions.

Q: Can you give an example of how going digital has helped healthcare organisations?

A: In the 2010s, we were fortunate to study the telehealth initiative of Khoo Teck Puat Hospital’s geriatric unit. The initiative reached out to several nursing homes to give their residents access to specialist eldercare from the hospital through video conferencing.

This meant that elderly residents did not have to face challenges in getting to the hospital. And, time-strapped nurses and specialists did not have to travel for consultations.

Challenges were worked out, like implementing the technology and training nurses to support specialists during teleconsults. But there were questions on whether telehealth was economically viable in the longer term.

Then COVID-19 happened in 2020. Pandemic restrictions made it difficult for nursing home residents to have visitors in-person.

Because the nursing homes and the hospital already had telehealth protocols in place, they quickly shifted consultations and visits online, as well as rolled out measures to control COVID-19 spread.

The project showed that digital transformation on an ecosystem basis – information flow, systems and processes across organisations – can deliver healthcare effectively, and increase resilience and agility of healthcare organisations.

Q: What are the common issues organisations across industries face when they transform digitally?

A: Every organisation experiences four types of tensions between the new and existing that never go away but can be managed: tensions relating to the identity of workers and the company; tensions regarding workers’ goals and key performance indicators; tensions linked to workplace processes; and tensions dealing with workers’ knowledge.

When an organisation transforms digitally, these tensions flare up because you’ve changed the basis of performance, identity, what workers know and are good at, and standard practices.

You cannot look at just one side of the tension, for example, focusing primarily on new knowledge and skills associated with the transformation while ignoring those associated with the existing business. This has been shown to exacerbate tensions and, over time, dampen and even stall digital transformation.

You have to address all sides, such as solving the problems workers face, while also meeting the needs of organisations. This requires a managerial mindset that accepts the apparent contradictions of competing demands and is open to creative ways to address them.

Q: How does being at the crossroads of business, science and technology bolster NBS’s research?

A: Because we’re a business school in a technological university, we’re able to carry out research across disciplines that is generally hard to do.

A growing area is in sustainability. For example, our first major project under the Global-Asia Insurance Partnership between the insurance industry, public sector agencies and academia is on climate change.

Industry partners wanted us to look at the flooding risk of major Asian cities and develop actuarial risk models that would subsequently influence insurance products.

We are able to do this because NBS’s actuarial faculty can partner with scientists from NTU’s Earth Observatory of Singapore and together work with the insurance industry.

Our interdisciplinary research and skills play a big role in differentiating us from other business schools.