Emergency Medicine · Public Health · Digital Health

Ng Yih Yng, MBBS, MRCS A&E, MPH, MBA, MTech

Emergency medicine physician, public health specialist, and digital health leader. Three decades building the systems that respond when every second counts — from prehospital emergency care to AI-enabled healthcare.

Dr Ng Yih Yng
About

Scaling human-centred innovation into everyday healthcare practice

Dr Ng Yih Yng designs and scales the innovations that change how healthcare is delivered — combining human-centred design with digital health and AI to move ideas from pilot to national practice, and from national practice to measurable, everyday impact.

Dr Ng Yih Yng works at the crossroads where emergency medical services and public health meet digital health transformation. He is an associate professor at Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore and an adjunct at the Prehospital Emergency Research Centre, Duke-NUS.

Over three decades, he has built extensive government service experience across multiple agencies — the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and 11 years as a Visiting Consultant with the Ministry of Health's Hospital Services Division — while working directly within the healthcare system to manage emergency services, drive innovation, and lead digital health transformation.

He served as a Medical Officer with the Singapore Armed Forces from 1993 to 2018, including as Chief Medical Officer of the Singapore Civil Defence Force (2012–2018), where he led the transformation of Singapore's national EMS system — including the 995 emergency call centre, the R-AEDi AED registry (developed with the Singapore Heart Foundation), the HDB Save a Life residential AED programme, and the blueprint for digitalising the 995 ambulance fleet through the OMNII connected prehospital electronic medical record system. He was also the architect behind myResponder — Asia's first smartphone app to crowdsource bystander CPR and AED response for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, now used by tens of thousands of registered community first responders across Singapore.

His health policy development experience spans the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Home Affairs — where he was HomeTeam Chief Medical Officer from 2015 to 2023 — and 11 years as a Visiting Consultant with the Ministry of Health's Hospital Services Division. From 2018 to 2025 he led digital health and AI innovation across the National Healthcare Group, as Director of the Digital and Smart Health Office and Director of the Health Empowered by AI Launchpad, driving NHG's "Hospital Without Walls" strategy and its cluster-wide AI adoption agenda.

Alongside these system-level roles, he has practised as a consultant emergency physician at Singapore General Hospital and Tan Tock Seng Hospital — work recognised with national honours including the Public Service Administration Medal (Silver) and the COVID-19 Resilience Medal.

Career Timeline

1993–2018
Medical Officer
Singapore Armed Forces
2012–2018
Chief Medical Officer
Singapore Civil Defence Force
2015–2023
HomeTeam Chief Medical Officer
Ministry of Home Affairs
11 years
Visiting Consultant
Ministry of Health, Hospital Services Division
2018–2025
Director, Digital & Smart Health Office; Director, Health Empowered by AI Launchpad
National Healthcare Group
2008–2025
Consultant Emergency Physician
Singapore General Hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital
2025–present
Professor; Associate Professor (Adjunct)
National University of Singapore, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health
Dr Ng Yih Yng

Qualifications

  • M.B.B.S., National University of Singapore, 1999
  • M.R.C.S., Accident & Emergency (Edinburgh), 2003
  • MOH Emergency Medicine Register, 2008
  • Master of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 2009
  • Master of Business Administration, Johns Hopkins University, 2009
  • Fellow, Academy of Medicine Singapore, 2010
  • MOH Public Health Register, 2018
  • Master of Technology (Digital Leadership), NUS-ISS, 2021

Selected Awards & Honours

  • Public Service Administration Medal (Silver), 2023
  • COVID-19 Resilience Medal, 2023
  • Public Administration Medal (Silver) (COVID-19), 2022
  • HIMSS Best Paper Award, "A Hospital Without Walls," 2022
  • NHG Research Impact Award, 2020
  • Ng Teng Fong Healthcare Innovation Award, 2020
  • MHA HomeTeam Innovation Award (Silver), 2018
  • Asian Association for EMS — Individual & Organisational Excellence in EMS Awards, 2016
  • National Infocomm Awards, 1st Runner-up, 2016
  • ASEAN ICT Bronze Award (Public Sector), 2015
Consulting

How I can help

Advisory work drawing on three decades in frontline emergency medicine, national public health leadership, and digital health innovation.

EMS Systems Design

Building and strengthening prehospital emergency care systems — from first-responder and dispatch networks to community CPR/AED programmes and system-level performance improvement.

Public Health Policy Consultancy

Advising governments and organisations on the design, implementation and evaluation of policy for community resilience, disaster preparedness and emergency response.

Healthcare Design Thinking

Facilitating human-centred design processes for hospitals and health systems working through complex operational and clinical challenges.

Digital Health & AI Adoption

Strategic guidance for healthcare organisations integrating digital tools and artificial intelligence into clinical practice, operations and population health.

Media Commentary

Expert commentary and speaking engagements on emergency medicine, public health systems, and digital health and AI innovation, for media, conferences and industry events.

Research

Selected Publications

Peer-reviewed research spanning out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, prehospital emergency care, community first-responder systems, and digital health.

Full publication list: Google Scholar profile → · ORCID: 0000-0003-4598-1829 →

Media & Speaking

In the media & on stage

Commentary, features and speaking engagements on emergency care systems and digital health innovation.

Feature

GovInsider — Chief Medical Officer of Singapore Civil Defence to speak at Innovation Labs World

Read on GovInsider →

Talk

CAA19 — EMS Healthcare Innovation in Singapore

Watch on YouTube →

Speaker

CAA Congress — Speaker Profile

View profile →

Conference

Smart Health Asia — Programme Speaker

Smart Health Asia →

Testimonials

What colleagues and clients say

"I had the privilege of consulting with Dr Yih Yng on a health tech project, and his guidance was invaluable. Dr Yih Yng generously shared his extensive insights into the public healthcare innovation landscape, drawing from his diverse experiences across various roles. His ability to provide a multifaceted perspective on stakeholder interests and project positioning was particularly enlightening. Through our discussions, I gained a deeper understanding of how to maximize adoption and scalability for our project. Dr Yih Yng's expertise and willingness to help have significantly influenced our strategic approach."

Qihuang Xie

Digital Health & AI Enthusiast · Co-founder, Hesyra

"Yih Yng was an invited speaker for NCSS Social Service Summit 2025 speaking about innovation and digitalization. His sharing was inspirational yet simple and was able to connect with the audience — not with fanciful and complex concepts but inspiring people to innovate through rethinking existing concepts. It was truly an eye opener on how he was able to share his experiences to inspire the social service community to innovate. For those of us who have heard him speak, we indeed were very blessed! Highly recommended speaker!"

Adam Oei

Deputy Director & Lead Research Specialist, National Council of Social Service

"As Head, Preventive Medicine Branch in HQMC, YY was an extremely strategic leader in responding to the rapidly changing information environment during the immediate post-SARS period in Singapore, as evidenced through his thoughtful and decisive deliberations in designing preventive protocols against future events. He further displayed strong and effective leadership in mobilizing the PrevMed officers and staff throughout this challenging period and successfully managed the operational demands of handling this severe emerging infectious disease."

Andy S.L. Tan

Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication

"LTC Ng is one of the most helpful and collaborative people I've worked with. In a large, complex organisation, it is often challenging to obtain precise and accurate information that achieves work objectives in a timely manner. YY was always there to help. He sees the bigger organisational picture. He has no airs. An asset to any organisation!"

Dawn Lim

Managing Partner & Marketing Consultant

More recommendations on LinkedIn →

Let's talk

For consulting enquiries, speaking invitations, or media requests, reach out directly.