Applying agile to Singapore’s population health programme

Salman Jaffer, Programme Manager of Data aNalytics and AI (DNA) at Singapore’s national healthtech agency, Synapxe, has worked in various cities around the world.

He started off his career in risk management and financial services, working in the United Kingdom and Singapore, before moving into data science within the fintech industry in Vietnam and other countries.

Currently, he oversees the development of data analytics use cases and dashboards for Healthier SG, the country’s national population health programme, and artificial intelligence (AI) models to improve workflows across the public health landscape.

“I got called up by Synapxe, and they said, “Would you like to join us and bring some of that outside industry and startup experience here? “…They wanted more skills, more diversity, more experience, to contribute as part of the team,” he explains.

Managing system-wide programmes

Having worked in a wide variety of fields, his experience in managing programmes in different environments has been invaluable in supporting his current work, Salman shares.

“How do we do things better, faster, cheaper? … Whether you are with a corporate or in a small company, how do you hire the right talent? How do you retain them? How do you lead them?” he says. Tackling these challenges has been mainstays across his career, he shares.

“Understanding the overall view is very important to know how to structure a programme. That's something I really take with me from my early days,” he says.

The large-scale development and implementation of Healthier SG meant that he had to work closely with various public healthcare stakeholders to structure various data analytics workflows.

Overseeing products in a lean and agile way

The other critical skill that supports his work has been his product engineering experience – knowing how to build tech products that people actually use in an agile way.

Working closely with various teams across the public healthcare agencies and institutions, he led the development of data flows to improve clinic capacity management and ease of clinic selection for residents, making it more convenient for them to enrol into Healthier SG.

This was done through working with other team members such as product developers and designers to ensure that the data flows were incorporated and tested rigorously during the prototyping phase.

The objective was to make it as simple as possible for people to enrol to Healthier SG, says Salman. Rather than having users scroll through a long list of general practitioners (GPs), the team built a simple algorithm that places the likeliest choices at the top of the list.

Then, they sought feedback from GPs and residents, presented the tool to senior stakeholders, and helped onboard partner agencies onto the system, he explains.

The majority of the people enrolled in the system have selected one of the first two options, which reflects how the algorithm enhances the patient experience and ease of enrolment, he shares.

The team was able to get the platform off the ground within a year. As of 18 May, close to 890,000 residents have enrolled in Healthier SG.

Nurturing agile in government

“Whether it's a large or small company, I prefer working in smaller teams because the overhead of communication and collaboration can be quite heavy in much larger teams,” he shares.

He emphasizes that being agile and product focused is essential whether you work in the private or public sector, he shares.

“There are some great agile organisations in the public sector that are using the latest tech and are very quick to develop prototypes and test to see if there’s a market,” he notes.

 People keen to work in agile ways should find like-minded people to work with and nurture an agile culture. When he first joined Synapxe, he actively sought people already working on cloud tech to expand the use of cloud within the agency, he says.

Keeping a product mindset over a project mindset is also critical. When leaders think with a product focus, their goal is continuous improvement and user engagement over viewing projects as a one-and-done deal, he says.

For younger folks joining the public sector, he advises them to keep the broader picture in mind, take advantage of learning opportunities to grow their technical skills, seek out people to learn from, and explore avenues to grow.

Improving health outcomes with data

Through Healthier SG, Singapore aims to improve health outcomes by helping Singaporeans proactively manage their health and lead healthier lives. GPs partner with citizens to set health goals, develop a personalised health plan, and access services from public agencies.

Synapxe uses de-identified data and applies predictive and descriptive analytics to spot large-scale trends, such as chronic conditions, and explain them to business stakeholders.

With cloud capabilities today, the team can do this on a much larger scale than before – up to hundreds of gigabytes of data, explains Jaffer.

The team can use that data to identify better approaches and work with partners to drive enrolment, through roadshows and other marketing efforts.