I had a minor biking accident recently and learnt a lot about the healthcare system in Singapore. Loads (including low-tech telemedicine) for other countries to learn from! A thread [1/]

I was biking on a small island called Pulau Ubin and fell down while going fairly fast downhill. Had deep wounds on my hands, shallow (but dirty) wounds on my elbows, and bruised ribs. Thankfully, had no fractures [2/]

Got first aid on the island free of charge – government staff was well trained in administering first aid and were stocked with first aid kits. They cleaned my wounds with saline water, and then applied gauze and bandage with a recommendation to go the doc the next day [3/]

More importantly, they asked me where exactly I had fallen and made a note of it. They keep logs of all biking accidents on the island, and will apparently make modifications to "dangerous" trails to make them safer. Excellent use of data! [4/]

I went to a state-funded polyclinic the next day. Because I'm a foreigner without insurance, this was expensive (around US$115). The cost is subsidised for citizens and would've been around a third of what it was for me – which is totally fair [5/]

They had an interesting innovation – a "TeleWound" program. After patching me up, they gave me the option to take three medical kits home and told me I could just email them photos of how my wounds were evolving over time, and then get a phone consultation with a nurse later [6/]

This would be cheaper for me, save the clinic valuable resources as they could then focus on more severe cases, and also save me time as I wouldn't have to go the clinic and wait for my turn [7/]

To do this, they took photos of my wounds on the day I visited them and measured the wound dimensions in inches. I assume they have software to see if my wound size had shrunk sufficiently + ensure that it isn't infected when I send them photos later [8/]

Was very impressed by this. Would be very useful to see this built into iPhone/Android apps. Specially since measurements can easily be done with the camera on high-end devices now [9/]

Takeaways:
- use data to figure out why incidents are happening, then fix root causes
- use tech to offload "on-site" activities where possible. Leads to huge cost savings
- train staff well and stock them with first aid in remote locations where injuries can happen [10/end]