Registration desks at Foyer 5 will open at 7.30am and close at 4.00pm
Tea Break and Poster Viewing
Opening and Award Ceremonies Guest of Honour: Dr Janil Puthucheary
Delegates are to be seated by 9:45am
Guest of Honour: Dr Janil Puthucheary
Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information & Ministry of Health
Keynote Lecture: Value-Based Healthcare/Transformation Dr Prem Kumar Nair
Value-based healthcare is about providing the best quality appropriate care to patients and reducing medical costs at the same time. It does not refer to a single care episode but to the overall wellness of people. The emphasis is on the quality of care given to patients, not the quantity.
As medications and therapies are integral to patient care, the role of the pharmacist in this area is a very important one. From patient education, physician partnering and involvement in the therapeutics committees to cost-effective procurement and supply chain efficiency, pharmacists are central to the concept of value-based healthcare.
Dr Prem Kumar Nair
Chief Executive Officer at IHH Healthcare Singapore
Lunch Break
Lunch Symposium: Probiotics in the Management of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (Sponsored by DCH Auriga) Dr Wang Yu Tien
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a chronic functional gastrointestinal disorder which is associated with alterations in the Gut Microbiome. This results in bothersome abdominal discomfort and altered bowel habits. As there is evidence that probiotics are effective in managing IBS symptoms, we will review its clinical use in the management of IBS.
Dr Wang Yu Tien
Senior Consultant, Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Nobel Gastroenterology Centre Gleneagles Medical Centre
Track 1: Evolution • Rapid Diagnostics and the Evolution of Antibiotic Stewardship A/Prof Christine Teng
Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) can reduce the time to identification and/or susceptibilities of pathogens from days to mere hours. This talk will review how implementation of RDTs has enhanced appropriate use of antibiotics and improved patient outcomes especially when integrated with antibiotic stewardship programmes. Awareness of RDTs’ benefits and limitations, along with assessment of institutional needs, will be critical to ensure effective implementation and augmentation of antibiotic stewardship programmes.
A/Prof Christine Teng
Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacy at National University of Singapore
Track 1: Evolution • Low Clearance Clinic Dr Sim Mui Hian
Low Clearance Clinic started as a one-stop multidisciplinary clinic for patients with chronic kidney failure, primarily to facilitate timely renal replacement therapy planning on top of optimising their condition and management of any symptoms that they may have. In this clinic, besides the doctor's consult, the patient may also have consults with other healthcare professionals such as the pharmacist, nurse, dietician, medical social worker, and renal coordinator as needed. Through this talk, we will explore the transformation of Low Clearance Clinic, expanded roles of the pharmacist as a collaborative prescriber, key monitoring outcomes, challenges faced and opportunities ahead.
Dr Sim Mui Hian
Principal Clinical Pharmacist at Singapore General Hospital
Track 1: Evolution • EDIFY: Mitigating ED Admissions Amongst Elders Ms Selina Cheong
“Front-door geriatrics” is the term coined for front-loading geriatric assessments and interventions right from the emergency department (ED), so as to meet the multidimensional needs of vulnerable older adults and reduce adverse outcomes. These measures are essential to the prompt management of frail older adults with complex needs. At Tan Tock Seng Hospital, we have successfully established the Emergency Department Interventions for Frailty (EDIFY) programme consisting of geriatric-trained healthcare professionals, with aims of minimising potentially avoidable admissions and delivering early integrated geriatric interventions at the ED. For this talk, we present a novel front-door transdisciplinary care model, describing the role of the geriatric clinical pharmacist beyond the usual scope of practice. Additional responsibilities include early assessment (performing history-taking and physical examination, ordering diagnostic tests) of patients with potential for discharge from the ED or transfer to lower-acuity care areas, as well as early escalation of ill cases to the geriatricians, when indicated.
Ms Selina Cheong
Senior Pharmacist (Clinical) at Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Track 1: Evolution • Q&A Session
Presentation of Outstanding Abstracts & Tea Break
Plenary Lecture 1: Chief Pharmacist's Address • Riding on the Forces for Change Dr Camilla Wong
Our environment is rapidly changing, and we need to evolve to keep up, but what does that mean? Internal and external drivers of healthcare accentuate the need for us to understand how our workforce needs to transform to deliver current and future healthcare models. What is the leadership that needs to see us through these forces for change that includes changing expectations of the younger generations, new therapies, pandemics, and the changing healthcare financing models, e.g. Healthier SG? What do we need to consider from a service delivery, manpower capability and workspace transformation perspective, using technology as an enabler? How do we better prepare our pharmacy workforce? An engaged workforce is one that finds meaning and purpose in what they do, with quality relationships as its cornerstone, increasing team spirit, mutual respect, and importantly, trust. With this, collective thinking can occur, allowing the pharmacy fraternity to forge onwards and change at a faster speed.
Dr Camilla Wong
Chief Pharmacist, Chief Pharmacist's Office at Ministry of Health
Evening Symposium: Managing Cancer Patients in the Current COVID-19 Pandemic (Sponsored by Bristol Myers Squibb) Clin Asst Prof Lee Jie Xin Joycelyn
In this session, we share insights on how to manage cancer patients with concomitant COVID-19 infections. We will discuss if patients on active cancer treatment have a predisposition to COVID-19 infections, weigh risk-benefits of persisting with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor (ICI) therapy, educate on how to best time COVID-19 primary vaccination series and/or booster shots and discuss vaccine-related reactions. In so doing, we hope to synthesizse the information towards holistic management of cancer patients in the community.
Clin Asst Prof Lee Jie Xin Joycelyn
Consultant, Division of Medical Oncology at National Cancer Centre Singapore
Social Night
Venue: TAP Craft Beer Bar @ Millenia Walk Address: 9 Raffles Blvd, #01-06/07/08, Singapore 039596 Free Flow Food and Drinks will be provided.
*Registration for this event is closed.
Registration • Day 2
Registration desks at Foyer 5 will open at 7.30am and close at 4.00pm
Plenary Lecture 2.1: Reinvention for the New Normal • Leadership: Thinking Differently A/Prof Audrey Chia
One of the underrated roles of a leader is that of intellectual stimulation. In A/Prof Chia’s research on social innovation in global health and medicine, she used case studies and systematic empirical analysis to examine how social innovators have solved complex or intractable problems. These social innovators thought differently about the problems and encouraged others to do the same. The socially innovative practices associated with thinking differently can be applied by leaders in any field, to better engage and activate the creativity of the people whom they lead.
A/Prof Audrey Chia
Associate Professor, NUS Business School and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at National University of Singapore
Plenary Lecture 2.2: Reinvention for the New Normal • Learning From Other Industries Dr Colin Tan
This presentation will cover how the SAF and the SCDF responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, both to maintain the operational readiness of the forces, and to support the national effort.
In particular, this presentation will share the unique setups of the uniformed organisations which well-position them to respond in such contingencies and illustrate with examples how these are integral to Singapore's overall response.
Lastly, this presentation introduces paramedics as an allied health profession, touching on their training and skillsets which define their irreplaceable role in the local healthcare system; and how they have and continue to contribute to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Colin Tan
Chief Medical Officer at Singapore Civil Defence Force
Plenary Lecture 2: Reinvention for the New Normal • Panel Discussion / Q&A
Morning Symposium: Updates on COVID-19 Therapeutic Options Dr Shawn Vasoo
The rapid development of therapeutic options from prevention to treatment against SARS-CoV-2 is exciting news but few of us understand what this means. How do we know if the drug is safe and effective? Will all patients be optimally protected from cOVID-19? What are the considerations to be made before prescribing a drug?
Adjunct Assistant Professor Shawn Vasoo, Clinical Director at National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and Senior Consultant in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, will provide his perspectives on the various therapeutic innovations, drawing from his extensive experience at the forefront against COVID-19.
Dr Shawn Vasoo
Clinical Director & Senior Consultant of National Centre for Infectious Diseases
Tea Break & Poster Viewing
Track 4: Precision • Transforming Health in Singapore through Precision Medicine Prof Patrick Tan
Singapore, like many other countries, faces evolving healthcare demands driven by a rapidly ageing population and increased prevalence of chronic diseases. Precision Medicine (PM) is an innovative data-driven medical approach, where scientists and doctors take into consideration the patient’s genetic background, lifestyle, and environmental factors to pre-empt the development of diseases, deliver accurate diagnosis and optimise treatments.
In Singapore, the National Precision Medicine (NPM) programme is a whole-of-government approach to explore how PM should be best deployed to transform healthcare, drive research and clinical innovation, propel growth and create value propositions to uplift the local biomed tech industry. Through NPM, we hope to preserve health and improve health outcomes through a data-driven medical approach to provide Singaporeans with the highest quality of life.
Prof Patrick Tan
Executive Director of Precision Health Research Singapore (PRECISE)
Track 4: Precision • QPOP: An AI-Application Towards Personalised Cancer Treatment A/Prof Edward Chow
It is evident that cancer, even within the same subtype, is often driven by a diverse range of molecular mechanisms. Identifying the most suitable therapeutic option from amongst a range of available drugs is a daunting task given the large search space and the lack of suitable predictive biomarkers. We have developed a complex system analytics platform, Quadratic Phenotypic Optimisation Platform (QPOP), that uses real biological drug combination sensitivity data to derive and rank all possible therapeutic outcomes from a drug search set. When applied towards ex vivo patient-specific drug sensitivity testing, QPOP has shown promise in helping clinicians identify appropriate therapies for specific patients. The early promise of these platforms suggests that truly personalised medicine is achievable in cancer. However, a number of hurdles remain. We will discuss both the promise and problems that face implementing technology towards making personalised medicine a reality in cancer.
A/Prof Edward Chow
Associate Professor, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore at National University of Singapore
Track 4: Precision • Pharmacogenomics in Neurology • A Pharmacist's Perspective Dr Wong Pei Shieen
Pharmacogenomics, often viewed as the “low-hanging fruit” of genomics medicine, has made significant advances over the last decade. Clinical application has become a reality with the development of comprehensive databases and clinical practice guidelines, by international workgroups such as the PharmGKB, Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium (CPIC®) and the Dutch Pharmacogenetics Working Group (DPWG). As of June 2021, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has 326 approved drugs with a corresponding pharmacogenomic biomarker on the drug label, of which 10% are used in neurology. In Singapore, HLA-B*15:02 genotyping before initiating carbamazepine in patients of Asian ancestry was the first widely implemented pharmacogenomic test, recommended as standard of care by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) of Singapore, to prevent Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis. Other notable drug-gene pairs that are relevant in the field of Neurology include CYP2C19 genotyping to assess treatment efficacy of clopidogrel for stroke prevention, and CYP2C9 genotyping prior to initiation of siponimod. This session will highlight current integration of pharmacogenomics in the clinical management of neurological disorders, practical challenges with respect to clinical implementation and future directions.
Dr Wong Pei Shieen
Senior Principal Clinical Pharmacist at Singapore General Hospital
Track 4: Precision • Q&A Session
Lunch Break
Lunch Symposium: Deep Dive on Peripheral Neuropathy (Sponsored by Procter & Gamble) Dr Alexander Tan
Dr Alexander Tan
Consultant Endocrinologist at Sunway Medical Centre
Plenary Lecture 3.1: Resilience and Recovery • The Art of Becoming Resilient Dr Huang Wanping
This presentation will explore what we can all try and do within our internal locus of control to own our individual journeys in becoming resilient. Resilience is defined as one's ability to withstand, adapt and grow in the face of adversity, setback, and failure. In so doing, we will be able to develop an individual action plan as we learn how to become resilient using the “Withstand Adapt Grow” framework. This simple framework serves as a guide to help operationalise the efforts one can take to shore up his level of individual resilience.
Dr Huang Wanping
Head, Principal Psychologist at Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Plenary Lecture 3.2: Resilience and Recovery • The Disappearing Commute Ms Soon Jiaying
Do you find yourself feeling exhausted and less effective at work? These are some characteristics of burnout, which occurs when chronic workplace stress is not effectively managed. The uncertainties, reduced social interactions and frequent changes in regulations have worn people down.
Working from home has made it more difficult to strive for a work-life balance. This in turn leads to a sense of disconnection between engagement and well-being in both work and personal life. This talk introduces you to ways to enhance your well-being. You will learn about the signs, symptoms, and stages of burnout, as well as the difference between burnout and other mental health conditions. This educational talk will also provide you with strategies to cope with burnout and enlighten you on an alternative perspective of work-life engagement as opposed to work-life balance.
Ms Soon Jiaying
Senior Clinical Psychologist at Resilienz
Plenary Lecture 3.3: Resilience and Recovery • Joy in Work Prof Chua Hong Choon
The past couple of years, dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, have been an extremely stressful and challenging period for healthcare workers in Singapore; and many have experienced significant declines in their well-being, both physical and mental. It is therefore important to acknowledge the importance of staff well-being in healthcare organisations.
The Joy in Work movement, initiated by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, has special relevance as we help healthcare workers to focus on what matters most in their work. This plenary session will examine the key elements of the Joy in Work framework, and how they can be applied to the local healthcare setting, to improve the well-being of healthcare workers in Singapore.
Prof Chua Hong Choon
Chief Executive Officer at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and Yishun Health
Award Presentation for Outstanding Posters and Abstracts
Track 7: Advancement • Technology Enablement in Singapore’s Pharmacy Services: A New Frontier Dr Goh Cheong Hian
Under the Health Products (Licensing of Retail Pharmacies) Regulations 2016, a pharmacy licence is issued by HSA for the company to carry on a retail pharmacy business specified in the licence. Over the years, there is greater use of technology in the Singapore healthcare landscape. It is important that companies comply with the requirements when integrating technology into their pharmacy activities. This presentation shares an overview of the technology enablement (e.g., tele-pharmacy service, e-Pharmacy) in Singapore’s pharmacy services, the expectations and responsibilities of pharmacy licensees; and HSA guidance resources for licensees to prepare and fulfil the prescribed legislative responsibilities.
Dr Goh Cheong Hian
Deputy Director, Audit and Licensing Division of Health Sciences Authority
WellAway e-Pharmacy is Singapore’s first HSA-registered e-Pharmacy and a subsidiary of Pan-Malayan Pharmaceuticals, Singapore’s leading local pharmaceutical wholesaler.
Setting up an e-Pharmacy is beyond codes and programming. It needs to take into consideration one’s logistic capabilities and buy-ins from various stakeholders such as pharmaceutical companies, doctors and patients. It is also important for pharmacists to rethink their roles in the digital setting. In this session, Marshall will share the success and hard work behind WellAway e-Pharmacy and how pharmacists can play a part in the new era of digital health.
Mr Marshall Liu
Associate Manager at WellAway E-Pharmacy
Track 7: Advancement • Incorporating Technology into Community Pharmacy Services in the Time of COVID-19: A Hong Kong Perspective Mr Hubert Suen
COVID-19 has brought its fair share of challenges to community pharmacies and the residential care/nursing homes that they serve. This includes manpower shortages, a reduction of nursing home visitations by clinicians and pharmacists, and in turn – a reduction of face-to-face clinical meetings. The traditional reliance of residential care/nursing homes on paper medication charts to prepare, check and subsequently administer medications to their residents compounds the issues brought along by COVID-19. During the pandemic, technological innovations such as Zoom meetings and various iOS applications have allowed community pharmacists to overcome some of these challenges to ensure they can provide continuity of care for their patients.
Mr Hubert Suen
Pharmaceutical Officer at ActiveCare Group
Track 7: Advancement • Q&A Session
Breakout Lecture: Making Pharmacogenetic Testing Commonplace (Sponsored by Thermo Fisher) Dr Goh Liuh Ling•Dr Carol Tham•Dr See Toh Wei Yann
Pharmacogenomics (PGx) is becoming established in many centres around the world and will become increasingly integral to the practice of Medicine as it allows for patient-centred risk-stratification of pharmacologic response and prediction of adverse drug events. In this session, we describe a highly collaborative implementation of PGx testing in a public healthcare institution.
Dr Goh Liuh Ling
Senior Principal Scientific Officer, Personalised Medicine Services at Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Dr Carol Tham
Senior Consultant, Department of Neurology at National Neuroscience Institute
Dr See Toh Wei Yann
Senior Pharmacist (Clinical) at Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Track 2: Transformation • Bot MD: Innovation That Delights Ms Dorothea Koh
In Ms Dorothea Koh’s presentation, she will share her experiences innovating digital health solutions for doctors and healthcare professionals around the world and her start-up’s journey in developing Bot MD, an A.I. Assistant that integrates hospital content to provide instant answers to doctors’ and patients’ queries.
Since 2018, 18,000 healthcare professionals have used Bot MD globally, including 6,000 doctors and nurses in Singapore. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bot MD was used to power consumer chat platforms to help doctors and nurses monitor over 4,000 COVID-19 patients in Singapore and Indonesia.
Ms Dorothea Koh
Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Bot MD
Track 2: Transformation • Digital Transformation: Cardiac Rehabilitation Anytime Anywhere with Heart Track Mr Rethinam Ganesan
Cardiac rehabilitation is the gold standard physiotherapy management for patients who have undergone a percutaneous coronary intervention after myocardial infarction. However, the uptake rate of cardiac rehabilitation has remained low globally. There are several patient-related barriers, such as the inconvenience of traveling to the hospital for exercise and work commitments that affect uptake rates. Hence, to address these patient-related barriers, the Design Thinking Approach was adopted to invent Heart-Track™. Heart-Track™ is a novel cardiac rehabilitation digital system in which care is delivered via a mobile application for patients who had undergone post-percutaneous coronary intervention to complete their exercise rehabilitation at their own pace and convenience. In doing so, Heart-Track™ aims to provide better health, better care, and better lives to patients.
Design as a creative problem-solving capability has been recently introduced into healthcare. From improving patient and staff experience to reimagining healthcare systems, design is rapidly being adopted as a driver and ally to healthcare innovation centred around the user.
So, what is the role of design in healthcare and how is it applied to address the complex healthcare problems we face?
Mr Low Cheaw Hwei
Head of Design, Philips ASEAN Pacific and Design Consulting, Asia at Philips Electronic Singapore Pte Ltd
Track 2: Transformation • Q&A Session
Breakout Lecture: What’s In and Out of Acne Management? (Sponsored by Galderma) A/Prof Mark Koh
Pharmacists play a pivotal role in advising acne sufferers to adopt early and effective treatment. This inherently treats the current and new lesions, and also reduces the risk of acne scarring, which may affect up to 95% of acne patients. This lecture seeks to provide an update on the acne treatment guidelines, and to share the “in’s and out’s” in acne management.
A/Prof Mark Koh
Head of Department & Senior Consultant, Department of Dermatology at KK Women's and Children's Hospital
Track 5: Innovation • Igniting the Creative Spark to Drive What Matters in Practice Innovation Ms Lynette Ong
Creativity, as a verb, is about solving problems with new solutions that have value. Creativity comes from the Latin term creo and simply refers to ‘create’ or ‘make’. Creativity is in you and me. It is possible to harness the creativity in each of us and our stakeholders through a creative process. This will then allow collective creativity and wisdom to solve complex issues or prepare for the rapidly evolving business environment, and deliver What Matters to our patients, colleagues, and stakeholders. This session will share how a creative approach is used to envision a Pharmacy without Walls in Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore.
Ms Lynette Ong
Director, Transformation of Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Track 5: Innovation • Supply Chain Resiliency Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic Ms Tan Yan Ann
The healthcare supply chain in Asia has by far seen one of its greatest challenges from the impact of COVID-19. To ensure the continuity of healthcare supplies, having a robust supply chain is of paramount importance, and more so when it comes to protecting our community. More importantly, we have seen the pandemic driving digitalisation in many companies including ours, to adapt to the new ways of conducting business with our customers and clients.
In this session, Ms Tan will share an overview of the healthcare supply chain and take a closer look at how Zuellig Pharma, one of Singapore’s leading healthcare service providers, combats the challenges posed by the pandemic through building resiliency in its operations by adopting and accelerating its digital initiatives during these exceptional times.
Ms Tan Yan Ann
Managing Director of Zuellig Pharma Pte Ltd
Track 5: Innovation • The Use of Robotics and Technology in the Setting Up of a GMP-Ready Aseptic Compounding Facility Mr Peter Yap
This session aims to provide the audience with an overview of what is required of a GMP-ready aseptic compounding facility for compounding of chemotherapy drugs. The audience will be taken on a journey to the setting up of such a facility. It will focus on the additional requirements needed to comply with the Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme (PIC/S) standards. From there, the audience will be introduced to how the use of robotics and other technology can help to meet these standards, which aim to ensure that products are consistently produced and controlled according to quality standards. The session will also introduce the audience to some of the robotics currently in the market and how these and other technological tools can and are enhancing the current practices used in aseptic compounding to ensure that the safety (of the staff), efficacy and sterility of these products are maintained.
Mr Peter Yap
Pharmacy Practice Manager at National Cancer Centre Singapore
Track 5: Innovation • Q&A Session
Lunch Break
Tea Break & Poster Viewing
Track 8: Activation • The ESTHER Network – What is best for Esther (Patient)? Dr Khee Giat Yeng
The ESTHER Network (EN) started in Jonkoping, Sweden, in 1997. "Esther" is a symbolic 88-year-old lady who requires close coordination across different care settings to address her health and social care needs. The Network constantly seeks to answer the question, "What is best for Esther?" by putting the individual at the heart of all its work.
ESTHER Network Singapore was established in 2016, and it has been a platform for co-production and co-design with patients, residents, and caregivers; undergirded by the philosophy of person-centred care and self-improvement. It is a tool to encourage a culture of shared decision, co-production, and empowerment.
This presentation will illustrate how EN connects the dots between social and healthcare providers to facilitate person-centred improvement work and deliver services that matter to patients. Pharmacist-led person-centred improvement initiatives will be shared to demonstrate how we can be involved and deliver person-centred services.
Dr Khee Giat Yeng
Senior Principal Clinical Pharmacist at Singapore General Hospital
Track 8: Activation • The PROMise of Person-centred Care Dr Soh Huimin
Patient-Reported Outcomes (PRO) have been progressively incorporated into clinical practice in recent times. Given the current transition to person-centred value-based care, PRO measures (PROMs) have become increasingly important to shared decision-making between patients and their healthcare providers.
In patients with multimorbidity, it is often a challenge to elicit personal beliefs and concerns that contribute to medication non-adherence, nor is it feasible to address them all in a time-limited clinic consultation. For this segment, we share an example of implementation of PROMs to support effective medication management. We hope to inspire colleagues to routinely incorporate PROMs into their daily practice, build trusting partnerships with their patients, and have conversations that truly reflect patient preferences.
Dr Soh Huimin
Senior Pharmacist (Clinical) at Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Track 8: Activation • Primary Care Services – A Case Study Implementing BPS Interventions Mr Choo Yan Cheng
“Medical care is estimated to account for only 10 to 20 percent of the modifiable contributors to healthy outcomes for a population. The other 80 to 90 percent are sometimes broadly called the Social Determinants of Health: health-related behaviours, socioeconomic factors, and environmental factors.” – Sanne Magnan, MD, PhD, of Health Partners Institute.
The biopsychosocial (BPS) approach systematically considers biological, psychological, and social factors and their complex interactions in understanding health, illness, and health care delivery. Senior activity centres achieve this with community spaces where care staff build relationships with clients and keep them mentally stimulated by encouraging participation in active ageing.
In a pilot programme coordinated by MOH, pharmacists are partnered with the centres and their seniors to help with empowerment in health ownership and effective medication usage. Mr Choo Yan Cheng (Senior Pharmacist) from Watson’s Personal Care Stores will share his reflections on community healthcare and experiences with seniors and centre staff.
Mr Choo Yan Cheng
Senior Pharmacist at Watson's Personal Care Stores
Track 8: Activation • Q&A Session
Breakout Lecture: Serenading the Era of Cardiovascular Disease Prevention: SiRNA-ing LDL to Target (Sponsored by Novartis) A/Prof Tan Ru San
This session aims to introduce small interfering RNA (SiRNA) as an option in the management of LDL-C lowering. The lecture takes the form of an interactive case study; with the audience polling to introduce the mechanism of action, its place in therapy, share efficacy and safety data; and the importance of achieving LDL-C targets in high-risk patients.
A/Prof Tan Ru San
Senior Consultant, Department of Cardiology at National Heart Centre Singapore
Track 3: PT Symposium Part 1 • Towards a Flourishing Pharmacy Community Ms Carolyn Ho
Beyond developmental frameworks and training programmes, networking opportunities for sharing of ideas and views are essential for the development of a future-ready pharmacy workforce. For pharmacy technicians, regular engagements through the Chief Pharmacist – Pharmacy Technician Leaders meeting platform gather leaders from various public healthcare institutions since October 2019. The aims are for leaders to: (i) plan the overall vision and strategy for pharmacy technicians, (ii) lead change by progressing initiatives to support the pharmacy workforce, and (iii) share best practices related to pharmacy and facilitate cross-learning. In 2021, the idea of forming a Community of Practice (CoP) for pharmacy technicians across institutions came to fruition through a collaboration with the Pharmaceutical Society of Singapore. The CoP would provide avenues for learning, sharing of best practices, and promoting recognition of the pharmacy support workforce. This presentation will provide updates and insights on national initiatives for the development of pharmacy technicians in Singapore.
Ms Carolyn Ho
Senior Manager, Chief Pharmacist's Office at Ministry of Health
Track 3: PT Symposium Part 1 • Panel Discussion
Break
Track 3: PT Symposium Part 2 • PT Best Abstract Presentation
Track 3: PT Symposium Part 2 • Expansion of the Pharmacy Technician’s Role: The Future of Work Ms Denise Yang•Ms Jocelyn Diamantha•Mr Izwan Hosni•Ms Ashwini Suppaiyah
Ms Denise Yang's Synopsis During the COVID-19 outbreak, the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) Pharmacy experienced a rapid increase in the medication delivery workload. This presentation will detail how pharmacy technicians stepped up to support operations. It also highlights the teamwork between pharmacy technicians and pharmacists in delegating the workload to ground staff and in disseminating information on workflow changes to relevant personnel in different departments.
Ms Jocelyn Diamantha's Synopsis Being a Clinic Pharmacy Technician has been the best part of my professional journey as a Pharmacy Technician. Being at the different touch points of patient care has been a meaningful experience as it allowed me to provide patients with a deeper understanding of their condition, share the importance of the use of each medication and check compliance to their medications. The roles of a Clinic Pharmacy Technician include assisting Cardiac Pharmacists in clinic to ensure smooth patient flow, triaging patients by soliciting patients’ chief complaints, asking standard monitoring questions, performing medication reconciliation, interviewing patients for their adherence rates, coaching patients and caregivers on home blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight monitoring; and how to recognise fluid overload symptoms. Additionally, Clinic Pharmacy Technicians also facilitate manpower planning and allocation of resources by tracking and reporting workload data so as to allow the pharmacists to schedule patients’ next appointments with a peace of mind.
Mr Izwan Hosni's Synopsis 2020 was an unprecedented year for the healthcare sector, battling COVID-19, an invisible enemy that the world had no knowledge of. Singapore went through various stages of lockdown and enforcement of safe management rules. Healthcare workers were challenged as frontliners in the battle. This presentation will describe the evolving roles of Pharmacy Technicians during the crisis, for example, dispensing drugs to foreign workers that were in dormitories for active COVID-19 cases, and converting under-utilised wards to ISO wards. It will also detail how the COVID-19 pandemic created opportunities to utilise limited resources well and paved the way for new initiatives such as telemedicine.
Ms Ashwini Suppaiyah's Synopsis This presentation will detail how a Pharmacy Technician adapted to new roles during the COVID-19 pandemic. From June to October 2021, Ms Ashwini Suppaiyah was assigned to work alongside doctors and nurses, dispensing medications to foreign workers in dormitories who reported feeling unwell. She will share about how she met the demands of the role by using tools like Google Translate, learning different languages, asking for help from mediators, improvising her drug labels with pictures and doing frequent inventory stock-take to ensure sufficient medications on hand. She will also share about her participation in the Pfizer Vaccine Dilution Project from January to May 2021. Ms Ashwini Suppaiyah had to equip herself with the right knowledge and techniques about dilution and handling injections in order to handle the demands of her role.
Ms Denise Yang
Senior Pharmacy Technician at Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Ms Jocelyn Diamantha
Pharmacy Technician at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital
Mr Izwan Hosni
Senior Pharmacy Technician at KK Women's and Children's Hospital
Ms Ashwini Suppaiyah
Pharmacy Technician at Sengkang General Hospital
Track 3: PT Symposium Part 2 • Panel Discussion
Track 6: Governance • EXPEDITE: the Pandemic Special Access Route (PSAR) Dr Looi Yee Ho
The Pandemic Special Access Route (PSAR) was implemented in December 2020 to enable regulatory agility in responding to any emergency that may pose serious threats to the public, such as in the situation of a pandemic. Through the PSAR pathway, HSA prioritises the review of critical COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics; and enables rolling submission to facilitate early initiation of the regulatory review while clinical and quality-related studies by the manufacturers are still ongoing. This has allowed HSA to expedite access to COVID-19 vaccines and anti-viral therapies while ensuring the scientific rigour of the assessment of quality, safety, and efficacy.
Dr Looi Yee Ho
Deputy Director, Therapeutic Products Branch of Health Sciences Authority
Track 6: Governance • Product Defect Surveillance through Web Crawling and Machine Learning, and Management of Issues Relating to Substandard Medicines Mr Desmond Teo•Mr Choong Chih Tzer
Substandard medicines are medicines that fail to meet their quality standards and/or specifications and can lead to serious safety issues. It is crucial to identify and manage such issues promptly to protect public health. The Vigilance and Compliance Branch (VCB) of HSA maintains oversight of investigations into product quality defects in Singapore to assess risk levels, determine appropriate market actions, and corrective and preventive actions, if any, to address the issue and mitigate risks. To enhance post-market surveillance of substandard medicines, VCB developed an automated web crawling tool, coupled with machine learning and keyword-based models, to extract and classify alerts relating to substandard medicines to facilitate review of cases. The tool accurately classified up to 97% of relevant alerts from about 350 alerts across 46 regulatory agency webpages per week. Future efforts to automate the classification of defect types and the extent of risk to public health could be explored.
Mr Desmond Teo
Data Analyst, Vigilance and Compliance Branch at Health Sciences Authority
Mr Choong Chih Tzer
Senior Regulatory Specialist, Vigilance and Compliance Branch at Health Sciences Authority
Track 6: Governance • Medico-legal Dilemmas in Tele-medicine Ms Elaine Teo
This session discusses tele-medicine in practice and emerging trends, the associated risks, and the medico-legal dilemmas for professionals and service providers.
Ms Elaine Teo
Director, Aged and Ancillary Service Regulations and Transformation of Ministry of Health
Track 6: Governance • Q&A Session
Lunch Break
Track 9: Scholarship • PECT-ing and Unpacking the Pharmacy Undergraduates’ Experiential Training for the Brave New World A/Prof Doreen Tan
In 2018, the new B. Pharm (Hons.) programme saw its first students entering the revamped pharmacy course by the NUS Pharmacy Department. Integrating pharmaceutical, biomedical, clinical and systems sciences, the curriculum design was deliberate in scaffolding and spiralling concepts throughout the four undergraduate years – morphing from problem-based to competency-based learning. Pre-Employment Clinical Training (PECT) was now to commence from Year 1 and this was termed PECT I to differentiate it from the current PECT which commenced only in the final year (now termed PECT II). The pedagogy for PECT I – the Kolb’s learning cycle – led to the conceptualisation of the PECT I framework to mirror the curriculum. Work commenced in February 2021 in a series of two workshops involving several senior pharmacists across the island, with an intended roll-out of PECT I for October 2021 when the inaugural batch would be in Year 2. Practicing pharmacists as young as second- and third-year practitioners were selected and trained through Faci-Net to be clinical educators for these young students. Join me in recounting the deliberate design of PECT I and learn what future-ready graduates could look like, in meeting the challenges of the brave new world.
A/Prof Doreen Tan
Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacy at National University of Singapore
Track 9: Scholarship • A Path Less Travelled: Narratives from Data-Analytics, Pharmacoeconomics, and Health Preference Research Dr Tan Eng Hooi•Dr Poon Jiat Ling•Dr Michelle Lim
Dr Tan Eng Hooi's Synopsis In this presentation, Dr Tan Eng Hooi will share her postgraduate journey and challenges faced along the way. The following topics will be covered: postgraduate study options (Masters/PhD, in person/distance learning, part time/full time); experience at the University of Oxford; and career pathways for a postgraduate/postdoctoral researcher.
Dr Michelle Lim's Synopsis Dr Michelle Lim has a proven track record of ten years in the pharmaceutical industry spanning across drug development and clinical research. She is well-versed in ICH-GCP and adept at clinical strategy planning and implementation of clinical trials. Her doctoral research in resistance mechanisms and discovery of novel genes for Novartis’s Phase IIb antimalarial drug candidate was published in peer-reviewed journals, including a first-author paper in Nature Microbiology. Michelle has been a registered pharmacist with the Singapore Pharmacy Council since 2011. In this talk, she will share her postgraduate journey, challenges faced along the way, and industry experience in drug development.
Dr Poon Jiat Ling's Synopsis From Singapore to the American Midwest. This was not where I thought my career would take me when choosing my ‘A’ levels subjects. It also was not the intended goal of the journey I set off on when I entered NUS Pharmacy. Far from it. My one guiding purpose throughout my academic and professional career has been to “help patients”. This has taken me on a road less travelled, away from direct patient care into measurement science and patient-focused outcomes research. As a measurement scientist, I have a direct impact on making life better for patients at the “source”, leading the incorporation of the patient voice throughout the drug development life cycle to understand and assess what matters most to patients – how they feel and function. Join me as I share my story about the decision-making that took me on this somewhat “different” career path.
Dr Tan Eng Hooi
Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences at University of Oxford
Dr Poon Jiat Ling
Director, Value, Evidence, and Outcomes of Eli Lilly and Company
Dr Michelle Lim
Associate Director, Clinical Program Operations, Exploratory Medicine and Pharmacology of Eli Lilly and Company
Track 9: Scholarship • Q&A Session
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