Mount Elizabeth Hospital is a private tertiary-care hospital in Singapore. Located in the Orchard Road district, it provides a broad range of specialist medical and surgical services, including complex care in areas such as cardiology, neuroscience and oncology, with more than 700 specialists under its roof. The hospital is part of the IHH Healthcare network.
Project Renaissance is one of the biggest transformations Mount Elizabeth Hospital has undergone in decades. What healthcare needs was the hospital trying to address through this investment?
Project Renaissance is much more than a renovation. Mount Elizabeth Hospital had not undergone any major transformation since 1979, so after COVID, we took the opportunity to rethink how healthcare should be delivered for the next 10 to 20 years. We redesigned the entire layout, patient flows, equipment placement, and operational support systems. The scale was massive—we tore down all nine existing lift shafts and built 14 new ones. We also factored in pandemic readiness, infection control, and isolation facilities, recognizing that many hospitals built before SARS and COVID were not designed for those scenarios. At the same time, we wanted to elevate patient dignity and privacy.
When we stepped back, we identified six transformation pillars: patient experience, outcomes, right-siting services, improving access, future-proofing care, and preserving heritage. We moved lower-intensity services like IVF, health screening, and rehabilitation into nearby buildings around Orchard Road, freeing up hospital space for higher-intensity care including operating theaters and endoscopy suites. We also introduced our “10, 25, 50 steps” planning concept—10 steps to the emergency department, 25 steps to specialist clinics, and 50 steps to inpatient admissions. This was also driven by an aging population with more complex comorbidities, alongside a rise in younger patients developing complex cancers due to modern lifestyle factors. Finally, we introduced digitalization to reimagine patient engagement including creating a digital heritage museum featuring historical artifacts and legacy medical equipment documented through oral histories.
Many hospitals are investing in AI. Where are you seeing the biggest impact so far at Mount Elizabeth Hospital?
We approached technology investment through three categories: operational support, patient experience, and clinical care. Operationally, AI supports nurse rostering and bed management to make resource allocation more efficient. On the patient experience side, we introduced a platform called LizWorld, which digitalizes patient feedback, food ordering, room orientation, among others. Using augmented reality, patients can point their phone at equipment in their room to instantly see instructions. Developed directly from patient feedback, this allows patients to self-manage routine tasks and eliminate repetitive, non-clinical requests to staff and allowing nurses to focus more on clinical tasks.
Consequently, our nurses and specialized clinicians spend significantly less time on administrative duties and more time on hands-on patient care. In clinical care, AI increasingly acts as a co-pilot. Modern imaging systems provide higher-quality scans with less radiation exposure, while AI helps radiologists identify subtle findings that could potentially be missed by the human eye. Because clinicians form a faster diagnosis with the assistance of AI, their time spent per case is significantly reduced, which translates into healthcare cost savings for the patient. The overall effect is faster diagnosis, greater efficiency, and better outcomes.
The new radiology complex includes technologies such as photon-counting CT and advanced angiography systems. How are advances in imaging changing what clinicians can do today?
In the past, patients often had to move between different locations for CT, MRI, and other scans. Today, with an integrated angiography suite, multiple imaging capabilities are brought together in one location. From the patient's perspective, it means fewer transfers, less waiting, and a simpler journey. From the hospital's perspective, it maximizes space utilization and operational efficiency.
Digital imaging has also transformed collaboration. Instead of physically passing films between specialists, clinicians can instantly access and review the same images regardless of location. This significantly reduces the time between scanning, diagnosis, and treatment planning, creating faster diagnostics and more efficient care delivery.
Singapore has become one of the world's leading healthcare destinations. What continues to attract international patients?
Healthcare operates as an ecosystem, and no two regional providers are exactly the same in terms of scale, capabilities, or competencies. We see Mount Elizabeth's role as supporting higher-intensity and more complex care, particularly in areas such as heart surgery, brain surgery, and cancer treatment. Singapore's reputation for quality, safety, and strong healthcare regulation strengthens that proposition. We are quite blessed with a strict regulatory framework where doctors must fulfill a specific number of years in the public sector before they are eligible to enter private practice, naturally ensuring our private specialists are exceptionally experienced and competent.
While we continue to perform high-volume procedures, our emphasis is on conditions that require advanced infrastructure, specialized equipment, and multidisciplinary expertise. The ultimate bottleneck in global healthcare is the absolute scarcity of these elite subspecialty minds; it takes decades of experience to train a top surgeon, which is why international patients travel here to access this irreplaceable human expertise. The combination of experienced healthcare professionals, technology, and institutional capability allows us to fill a specific gap within the regional ecosystem for patients who require access to highly complex care.
As IHH operates across multiple countries, what healthcare trends across Asia do you believe will have the biggest impact over the next decade?
IHH operates 89 hospitals across 10 countries, and that geographic diversity creates a vast ecosystem of varied clinical capabilities, price points, and care delivery models. Depending on their specific clinical needs and financial preferences, patients can easily choose treatment in Singapore or elsewhere within our network.
The variety of healthcare systems across countries such as Malaysia, India, China, Brunei, Turkiye, and Singapore provides immense flexibility for cross-border healthcare needs. Managing this vast footprint also highlights the critical need to optimize human capital; in Singapore, we actively recruit regional nursing talent from neighboring Malaysia and the Philippines, making it essential that we ensure all professionals focus on professional duties rather than routine tasks. Our role is to help patients seamlessly navigate those regional options and access the exact care that meets their requirements.
