Singapore is doubling down on making its healthcare ecosystem more connected and startup-friendly. Synapxe, the nation's health tech agency, has unveiled two new interoperability standards aimed at helping digital health innovators build devices and platforms that integrate smoothly with medical systems across the country.
These standards are designed to solve a long-standing challenge in healthcare technology: getting different systems to "speak the same language" so that patient information can move safely and seamlessly between clinics, hospitals, and home-based devices.
Two New Standards to Guide Health Tech Development
The rollout is a collaboration between Synapxe, the Centre of Regulatory Excellence – Standards Development Organisation (Core-SDO), Enterprise Singapore, and the Singapore Standards Council. Together, they've introduced two new national standards:
This guideline ensures that common clinical data—patient demographics, lab results, diagnostics, medications, and more—is structured and labeled consistently across systems. In practical terms, it means that when a startup creates a tool, such as a vaccination tracking app, it can use the same standardised codes hospitals rely on. The result is friction-free data exchange and greater trust from healthcare providers.
Built upon HL7 FHIR, this standard focuses on integrating data from wearables, telemedicine apps, IoT health devices, and remote monitoring tools. It ensures that at-home health readings—like blood pressure, glucose levels, or weight—can flow securely into EMRs, clinic platforms, and patient portals.
Designed to Support Startups Building Future-Ready Health Solutions
These new standards aren't being introduced in a vacuum—they'll be part of HealthX Innovation Sandbox (HX-IS) 2.0, Synapxe's updated test environment for innovators. Startups joining the sandbox can:
In other words, Singapore is giving innovators a safe place to experiment while ensuring their solutions can be deployed smoothly in real healthcare environments later.
Why These Standards Matter
Synapxe emphasises a simple but important point: interoperability is essential for continuity of care. When systems don't align, data gets trapped in silos, doctors lose vital information, and digital health tools become harder to adopt.
By introducing clear, unified guidelines early in the product lifecycle, startups can:
The standards also reinforce trust in digital health—something crucial for both providers and patients as Singapore relies more heavily on remote monitoring, virtual care, and AI-driven health tools.
Strengthening Singapore's Digital Health Vision
The push for interoperability aligns with the broader national initiative, Healthier SG, which aims to improve preventive care and streamline access to healthcare services. Consistent standards help create the foundation needed for long-term digital transformation across the sector.
Earlier this year, Synapxe also upgraded its sandbox environment using the Healthcare Commercial Cloud (HCC), giving startups a secure platform to demo and validate next-generation digital health products.
Together, these initiatives demonstrate Singapore's commitment to building a future-ready healthcare ecosystem that fosters innovation while safeguarding data consistency and patient safety.
Leaders Weigh In
Henry Kang, Director of Innovation and Capabilities Enablement at Synapxe, highlighted Singapore's long-standing focus on interoperability. He emphasized that the new standards will help innovators build solutions faster and with fewer barriers, ultimately supporting the entire public healthcare ecosystem.
Meanwhile, Choy Sauw Kook, Director-General (Quality and Excellence) at Enterprise Singapore, stressed the importance of guidelines in preventing fragmented systems. Without universal standards, she noted, digital health tools can easily create silos that disrupt patient care. With these new frameworks, healthcare providers can trust that the digital tools they adopt will integrate reliably.
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