Official opening of AMS-SGCR-WIRES 2025 by Adj Prof (Dr) Raymond Chua, CEO, HSA, 29 August 2025, 11am, Singapore Expo Convention and Exhibition Centre

Assoc. Professor Francis Ho, President of Singapore Radiological Society

Professor David Ng, President of College of Radiologists, Singapore

Assoc. Professor Steven Wong, President of Asian Musculoskeletal Society, and Organising Chairperson of AMS SGCR-WIRES 2025

Distinguished guests, clinicians and partners in the HealthTech ecosystem,

Good morning

Opening Welcome and Embracing the Conference Theme

1. It is an honour to join you at the Opening Ceremony of Singapore Congress of Radiology and Workshops in Interventional Radiology Education Singapore 2025. On behalf of the Health Sciences Authority (HSA), I thank the Organising Committee for this invitation. We celebrate a milestone: the conjoint meeting of the Asian Musculoskeletal Society, Singapore Congress of Radiology, and Workshops in Interventional Radiology Education Singapore. This marks the 26th AMS Annual Meeting returning to Singapore, its birthplace in 1999 under Professor Wilfred Peh's leadership, now spanning over 12 Asian countries and honouring our founding members as we enter the Society's next phase.

2. The theme, "Breaking Barriers and Building Bridges," captures the field's innovative spirit. This conference goes beyond musculoskeletal imaging to include abdominal, cardiac, and interventional radiology, plus the inaugural East Asian Imaging Informatics and AI Summit. With experts from over 28 countries, like Prof Shafi Ahmed on healthcare trends, Dr Woojin Kim on AI, and Emeritus Prof Donald Resnick, we tackle key challenges: cardiac disease detection, abdominal diagnostics, vascular interventions, and trauma care. Pre-conference workshops on photon-counting CT highlight emerging tech, while the AI Summit fosters regional collaboration amidst rapid AI adoption in neighbours like Malaysia, Thailand, China, and India. It's indeed a bridge for sharing research, challenges, and opportunities in AI-driven care, reminding us that progress thrives on collective wisdom.

The Transformative Power of AI in Radiology

3. In healthcare, the human touch remains irreplaceable. AI is transforming healthcare – not by replacing clinicians, but by empowering them. Let me share why these matters, particularly in radiology. 

4. Radiology has always been a specialty that embraces technology. From the early days of X-ray and ultrasound to CT, MRI, and now digital imaging, radiologists have consistently been at the forefront of innovation. Today, AI represents the next major frontier. But let me re-emphasise again — AI is not here to replace radiologists. Rather, it is here to empower you, helping to reduce workload, improve accuracy, and expand access to care.

5. By 2030, one in four Singaporeans will be above the age of 65. To meet this growing demand, our healthcare workforce needs to expand to 82,000. Imaging demand will rise sharply, yet our workforce cannot expand at the same pace. This is where AI can make a profound difference:

• Automating repetitive tasks such as segmentation, measurements, and routine reads.

• Reducing burnout by triaging urgent findings more quickly.

• Enhancing diagnostic confidence, especially in high-volume areas like chest radiography, mammography, and CT.

6. Already we are seeing these results in our healthcare institutions. For example, SELENA+ helps detect potential life-threatening eye conditions in minutes instead of an hour. Spine AI reduces MRI interpretation time from ten minutes to just three. Lunit Insight prioritises chest X-ray with significant abnormalities, potentially halving the turnaround time.  These are not pilots or prototypes — they are real improvements, making a tangible difference to patient care and radiologist workload.

7. Ultimately, AI supports precision medicine by standardising processes, minimising errors, and enabling better patient outcomes, including in underserved areas, thereby contributing to a more equitable healthcare landscape across Asia.

Why Governance is Critical

8. Yet for all its promise, AI also comes with risks if left unguided — bias in algorithms, opacity in decision-making, and the possibility of eroding patient trust. 

9. That is why governance is not optional. Governance ensures AI is safe, transparent, and effective. It gives radiologists — and patients — confidence in these tools. Singapore is not alone in this journey. Around the world, we see also new models of governance in radiology AI, for example, I gather that in the United Kingdom - NHS AI Lab & National Imaging AI Evaluation Platform – their radiology AI solutions are stress-tested against large, anonymised national datasets before deployment, ensuring clinical validity and equity of access.

10 From Singapore’s front, let me articulate on 3 fronts on our governance approach:

HSA’s Role in Regulating Radiology Technologies

11. First of all, HSA as Singapore’s regulatory authority for medical devices, including radiology system, play a pivotal role in ensuring that medical devices such as X-Ray, MRI machines and AI-Software as a Medical Device (AI-SaMD) meet stringent standards for safety, efficacy, and quality. Our regulatory framework is designed to balance innovation with patient safety, fostering an environment where cutting-edge technologies can thrive while protecting public health. This positions Singapore as a radiology hub, aiding clinicians in managing chronic conditions, trauma, and malignancies with speed and precision, turning regulation into a catalyst for faster patient care.

12. Yet, AI-SaMD's rapid iterative nature, demands an even more agile regulation to ensure safety and performance amid evolution. A cornerstone of our agile regulatory strategy is the Change Management Program (CMP) for SaMD, including machine learning-enabled medical software. It is a tailored framework designed to facilitate the timely implementation of changes in this fast-evolving space. Launched as an optional pathway integrated into premarket registration and change notifications, CMP allows manufacturers to pre-specify intended modifications, such as algorithmic tweaks or data updates, without necessitating full re-evaluations for every iteration. It balances rigorous oversight with agility, ensuring that updates reach clinicians and patients swiftly while maintaining safety standards. This programme is not just a regulatory tool, it's a bridge to innovation, empowering developers to iterate responsibly and deploy AI-SaMD that enhances musculoskeletal diagnostics, interventional precision, and beyond. By enabling these rapid iterations, we ensure that our regulatory framework keeps pace with technology, turning potential obstacles into opportunities for breakthroughs that benefit patients across Asia.

Future Revisions to AI Healthcare Guidelines

13. Besides looking at it from a device angle, we also know that devices are deployed in the healthcare settings and so looking ahead, we are strengthening our foundation for responsible AI adoption. Since launching the Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Guidelines (AIHGle) in 2021, we have gained valuable insights from healthcare institutions, industry and academia. We are working closely with MOH to revise the guidelines to better serve our developers, deployers, and healthcare professionals, like yourselves. Importantly, the revision will clarify the scope of roles and responsibilities of stakeholders across the AI lifecycle and recommend essential training for healthcare professionals. This is not just about the guidelines, it is about empowering you with the knowledge and confidence to harness AI effectively. With clearer roles and training on specific AI tools, we hope it supports responsible AI adoption while maintaining public trust in our healthcare system.

Enhancing Professional Governance

14. Even with the oversight of the healthcare settings to govern the safe development and deployment of the AI, it is important to tackle the users too. Within the diagnostic space, diagnostic radiologists play a crucial role in terms of clinical governance over the day-to-day operations. This includes establishing of clinical protocols, quality assurance for images and image reports and ensuring the safety of patients who engage your services. We hope that you will not take the technological advancement for granted and continue providing guidance to each other and the other healthcare professionals you work with.  We also look forward to seeing what new care models the sector can offer to increase the accessibility and quality of diagnostic imaging for our patients.  

15. In all of these, radiologists remain at the centre — the guardians of imaging integrity, the stewards of clinical governance, and the bridge between technology and patient trust. In this way, governance is not a brake on innovation — it is an accelerator, ensuring that AI is deployed responsibly, evolves safely, and continues to serve both patients and professionals.

Looking Ahead – A Shared Vision

16. As we break barriers, whether regulatory, technological, or geographical, and build bridges across disciplines, nations, and generations, let us envision a future where AI and advanced imaging unite to better manage disease and extend lives. Singapore's commitment to this vision, through HSA's and MOH’s forward-thinking governance, is unwavering. With strong governance, AI will not just be another tool in your arsenal. It will be a trusted partner, helping you manage rising imaging demand, enhancing precision, and enabling new models of patient-centred care.

17. Singapore is committed to this vision — through forward-looking regulation, partnership with clinicians, and continuous learning from global best practices. Together, with the brilliant minds assembled here, we will propel radiology into a new golden age, where AI augments the capabilities of our healthcare professionals and enable you to do what you do best – provide dedicated patient care. 

18. Let this conference be the spark that ignites lasting collaborations, where ideas flow freely, innovations flourish, and healthcare reaches new heights for all. 

19. I wish all of you a productive and insightful 3 days ahead in the conference.