Healthcare InnoMatch is an annual global challenge driven by the Centre for Healthcare Innovation (CHI) under its CHI Start-up Enterprise Link (CHISEL) initiative set up to strengthen healthcare transformation. It is supported by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Temasek Foundation (TF), together with the three public healthcare clusters National Healthcare Group (NHG), National University Health Systems (NUHS) and SingHealth.

Themed "Reshaping preventive care for a healthier population", this year's competition focused on solutions that best address challenges and needs in keeping patients healthy and preventing chronic health conditions. The winners were awarded a total of up to SGD 2.4 million to begin test-bedding their innovations at a public healthcare cluster they have been paired with, eventually adopting and scaling for use in public healthcare institutions across Singapore and beyond.

The synopses of their winning proposals are in the Annex.

In the finale event attended by an audience of over 300, the finalists faced the challenging task of pitching their solutions to the panel of judges from the Health Promotion Board, MOH, NHG, NUHS, SingHealth, Synapxe, and TF.

"Healthcare InnoMatch brings together healthcare startups from around the world annually to make the best-in-class solutions accessible to our patients and practitioners across Singapore's three healthcare clusters. This year's theme aligns with HealthierSG, our nation's focus on preventive health. We have seen high-quality submissions and look forward to the impact created by the winning teams, measured by our standardised evaluation framework," shared Associate Professor Tan Cher Heng, Executive Director, Centre for Healthcare Innovation.

Mr Tay Choon Hong, CEO of Health Promotion Board said, "In the role that the community plays in the future of healthcare, we need to have a shift in perspective. We should start to think of solutions that extend beyond individuals towards societal inclusion and participation. The participation rates for such solutions would be higher and more impactful for the community."

Ms Ngiam Siew Ying, CEO of Synapxe, shared the importance of IT viability in the finalists' solutions. He said, "I'm excited to be here because technology is a major enabler when you think about healthcare transformation. If you intend to scale care models, the only way to do so is with technology. It is important that the solution is compatible with the environment you operate in, whether in terms of technical integration or business processes."

Facilitating Faster, Better and Safer Adoption of Innovation

To further enhance the readiness and speed of adoption, all winning innovations will undergo a thorough and robust evaluation framework. Designed to give innovators, care providers and investors the confidence to adopt and scale, the CHI Evaluation Framework (CHIEF) is a one-stop platform to provide systematic and evidence-based approaches to assess the value and impact of these healthcare innovations.

With CHIEF, budding innovators will be equipped with the necessary guidance system from conceptualisation to adoption. Using the framework, they are able to benchmark their progress to specific milestones and checklists identified. The CHIEF advisors, made up of clinicians, researchers and officers from local and international healthcare innovation organisations led by the Ministry of Health (MOH), will provide further guidance and connect innovators to industry partners to help close the gap for projects that may not have satisfied any aspects of the framework.

Collaboration with Public Healthcare Clusters 

Launched in 2021, Healthcare InnoMatch is a global call for proposals from start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It serves as a platform for public healthcare providers and innovators from Singapore and beyond to solve pressing healthcare challenges through forward-thinking approaches and breakthrough technologies. It seeks innovative ideas that can transform the future of healthcare, such as improving healthcare delivery, lowering barriers to affordable care, and bringing care closer to residents in the community.

All three public healthcare clusters in Singapore collaborate to assess the clinical and operational feasibility of healthcare innovations using a common evaluation framework. The winning projects have been paired and test-bedded with at least one public healthcare cluster, where they can further customise their products and gain constructive feedback from healthcare providers and patients before it is scaled across the entire system if successful.

This is designed to accelerate the development of their new, near-market-ready technologies, which can be time-consuming and complex. Winning projects would also be able to take advantage of the experience of test bedding their innovations at the public healthcare cluster level to prepare them for future larger-scale implementation and commercialisation beyond Singapore.