Taking an open ecosystem approach to improve patient outcomes

The journey to an integrated healthcare ecosystem isn’t just theoretical. It's already delivering tangible results.

A prime example of this is the National Health Service (NHS) England who worked with global tech consulting firm Thoughtworks to build a robust platform for transferring patient records between general practitioners (GPs).

The platform has been a game-changer, enabling over 100,000 patient records to be transferred every month. By automating what was once a manual, time-consuming process, the NHS saved millions in administrative costs and improved patient experience.

Digital healthcare is no longer about a single service or hospital, but about creating an interconnected network of services and data that makes healthcare accessible and affordable for the public, using technology and smart policy decision.

This was the key message by Thoughtworks’ Asia-Pacific Head of Technology May Xu and Technology Principal Akshay Anand in their presentation titled Health Data Sharing: Getting Governance, Standards and Trust Right at GovInsider Live: Healthcare Day 2025 on September 16 in Singapore.

Health as a unified platform

Xu shared about the digital evolution of healthcare systems, moving from isolated solutions to an integrated ecosystem.

Singapore’s population health movement Healthier SG was a testament to how health goes beyond the clinic. Its preventative health focus warrants the need to create a network that seamlessly connects individuals, GPs and community partners.

The NHS example leverages platform thinking to increase speed-to-market, optimise costs and maximise the value of data investments. 

Increasingly, health as a platform is moving towards an open network or ecosystem. This shift from a platform to an open ecosystem allows the entire healthcare network to grow by leveraging citizen data and insights. 

By using open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and data, the infrastructure can easily “plug and play” with adjacent platforms and other organisations. 

This connectivity creates new opportunities for partners, industries and business models to collaborate and innovate.

Anand illustrated this shift from platform to ecosystem citing the digital evolution of Bahmni, an open-source electronic medical record system. 

The system has since evolved into a robust and scalable solution used in more than 50 countries and 500 hospitals.  Its design is also resilient and flexible as it is able to operate effectively in low-resource settings as well as large hospitals across cloud or on-premises use. 

Looking to the future, Bahmni remains futuristic by integrating modern features like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), conversational user interfaces and other systems, all while remaining compliant with data privacy regulations.

To subscribe to the GovInsider bulletin, click here. 

Ethical AI in practice 

Speakers highlighted the importance of open-source solutions, robust data governance and ethical management of AI models to ensure that systems are not only effective, but also trustworthy and secure. 

Ethical AI isn’t just a principle, but a practical business strategy that requires a validation process to be built into daily processes, as well as a commitment to continuous evolution.

The validation process can be done in various ways, such as using other AI models to cross-check the generative AI (GenAI) outputs such as GovTech Singapore’s LionGuard and involve human oversight. 

Ethical AI principles should also be embedded into the day-to-day operations. When a team is deciding what features to build or creating a product backlog, trust and governance considerations should be part of that discussion from the very beginning.

Finally, the continuous evolution of the system is critical as it helps organisations save money and keep pace with the rapidly changing technical landscape.

The speakers presented a continuous feedback loop as the solution. This is not just about technical feedback, but receiving feedback from across the entire organisation. By constantly modernising and adapting, the system remains relevant, effective and secure for its users.