NUS Medicine launches new integrated nursing-informatics degree programme

SINGAPORE - With the growing shift towards digital and AI-driven healthcare, the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUS Medicine) has introduced a new integrated nursing-informatics degree programme to equip nurses for expanded professional and leadership roles

in this evolving landscape.

To be offered by the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies (NUS Nursing) under NUS Medicine, the concurrent degree programme will combine the existing Bachelor of Science in Nursing honours programme and Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics.

The curriculum will integrate professional nursing education with biomedical informatics, covering topics such as data analytics and clinical decision support, health information system design and management, as well as ethics, privacy and cybersecurity in digital healthcare.

The four-and-a-half-year full-time programme will welcome its first cohort of about 20 students in August.

The new programme was launched on Feb 27 at the opening ceremony of the East Asian Forum of Nursing Scholars 2026, held at the NUS Cultural Centre.

Organised by NUS Nursing, the conference on how data and technology are reshaping nursing practice and healthcare delivery was attended by more than 1,800 nursing scholars, educators and healthcare leaders from more than 34 countries.

The new programme offers students two specialisations: analytics and hospital management. As part of the master’s programme, students will learn alongside individuals from other fields such as allied health, computing and engineering.

In a media release, NUS Medicine noted that this is reflective of the interdisciplinary nature of modern healthcare teams.

“Beyond traditional career pathways in clinical practice, education, research and management, nursing informatics significantly expands the range of professional roles available to nurses,” the medical school said.

“Graduates will gain dual expertise in care and technology, enabling them to practise as nurses while also taking on emerging roles such as clinical informatics specialists, digital health project managers, electronic health records implementation consultants and healthcare data analysts,” it added.

This comes after

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s Budget 2026 speech on Feb 12

, where he identified healthcare as one of four key sectors where the development and deployment of AI solutions will be focused under a national AI mission.

The new programme is for nursing students who also have a passion for technology and are keen on a broader career path, said Associate Professor Lydia Lau, deputy head of undergraduate education at NUS Nursing.

She added that graduates will be able to “apply technology meaningfully to patient care, contribute to system design, and respond confidently to the evolving demands of healthcare practice”.

“As healthcare becomes increasingly digital, nurses must be equipped to not only use technology, but also shape how it is designed, implemented and governed,” said Prof Lau.

“Nursing education, therefore, needs to shift its approach from simply training nurses to use digital tools, to preparing them to understand, evaluate and lead digital systems in real-world clinical practice.”

She noted that taking the concurrent degree programme would save students both time and money as it reduces the duration by six months, compared with completing a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a master’s in biomedical informatics separately.

Ms Theresa Samy, assistant director of nursing for nursing informatics at the National University Hospital, said that even older nurses are showing interest in how technology can be used to introduce data-driven changes that improve patient safety and staff well-being.

The new course will help establish informatics as a fundamental part of graduates’ nursing foundation, she said.

Alexandra Hospital senior staff nurse Leo Wong – whose work involves healthcare informatics and data systems and is currently pursuing the Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics at NUS Medicine – highlighted the value of the new programme for prospective nurses. He regards being tech-savvy as an important skill set for nurses.

“If I were a bachelor’s student again, I would definitely go for it,” said the 30-year-old.

Addressing concerns about recruiting and retaining nursing manpower in Singapore, Prof Lau said she is hopeful that the new programme would attract more to join the profession, particularly males.

“They realise that as a nurse, you don’t need to just do nursing, you can do other things,” she said.