From a young age, Major (Dr) Aaron Chua has enjoyed tinkering with things to improve them.
While in secondary school, he invented a new kind of toilet pipe in the hope of preventing clogs, as well as a new broom-plus-dustpan that allows people to sweep with less effort. The pipe project failed, while the broom project succeeded.
His bent for innovation has spurred him to improve the delivery of medical services as a doctor in the Republic of Singapore Air Force.
Last year, during the Covid-19 pandemic, he created a telemedicine platform that was used in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) community Covid-19 recovery facilities, allowing medical personnel to provide virtual consultations for the thousands of infected foreign workers recuperating in the facilities.
With the platform, the medical personnel did not have to be physically present at the facilities, and this halved the number of hours they had to spend in personal protective equipment.
A total of 439 consultations were done over the platform, in the process proving that medical conditions can be managed through such platforms without compromising on safety, said Maj Chua, 32, who heads the plans and training branch of the Air Force Medical Service.
He was given the Exemplary Innovator Award at the Public Sector Transformation Awards ceremony last Friday for his many innovative projects.
With the learning from the telemedicine experience, Maj Chua went on to develop another application, Soldier Health, which is set to be a one-stop mobile healthcare application for the Ministry of Defence and SAF.
For a start, the application will allow the booking of telemedicine consultations for servicemen to minimise waiting time.
Other functions being developed will allow medical personnel to perform triage and measure vital signs like heart rate and oxygen saturation remotely.
The app is already undergoing usability testing, and will be rolled out progressively from next month.
Speaking about his inspiration for the application, Maj Chua said: "As a doctor, I worked with patients on a day-to-day basis when training in hospitals... and providing a patient-centric experience is very close to my heart."
