COI Report – Part V
Page 200 of 425
639. Care was also taken to safeguarding the confidentiality of information in handling the communications. The text and email messages did not contain the patient’s demographic or medical data. Likewise, the call centre portal, developed by IHiS, was setup in a manner which safeguarded patient information by limiting the information which operator using the portal could view to whether the patient was (a) not affected, (b) had demographic data access, orc) had both demographic and medication data accessed no demographic or medical data was visible by the operator.
640. MOH reviewed and agreed with the contents of all the above forms of communications.
33.2.3
Operationalising the outreach and communications efforts, and the
role of SingHealth and IHiS staff
641. Up until shortly before the public announcement on 20 July 2018,
SingHealth’s senior management were unable, in light of the news embargo, to engage their staff to seek their assistance in operationalising the outreach and communications plan. In spite of this limitation, SingHealth had to ensure that there was sufficient manpower to put their communications and outreach plans into effect once the public announcement was made.
642. More than 1,000 staff from across SingHealth and IHiS were mobilised at short notice to assist inpatient outreach efforts. Staff were engaged through the usual leadership platforms, townhalls, and memos from senior management. These served to inform SingHealth staff of the attack, to provide staff with the information necessary to inform and reassure patients, and as a means to request for staff assistance inpatient outreach and communications.
643. Staff volunteers juggled their usual duties, worked around the clock, stayed back after their usual shift or over the weekend, thus enabling SingHealth to reach their patients in the shortest time possible. Staff volunteers included doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, as well as administrators from HR,
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