Global medical technology company, Smith+Nephew, recently announced the opening of Smith+Nephew (S+N) Academy Singapore. The academy is a medical education and digital innovation centre covering the Asia-Pacific region.
The S+N Academy Singapore will offer an engaging, immersive and interactive training environment for healthcare professionals from across the region. Healthcare professionals will experience the latest products and technologies and refine their techniques under the guidance of expert peers.
Gracing the events were Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry, Mr Gan Kim Yong and the Deputy British High Commissioner to Singapore, Mr Alex Bamford.
Deepak Nath, Chief Executive Officer of Smith+Nephew said, “There are many challenges in MedTech. One of them is the need to train practitioners, whether they are surgeons, or healthcare professionals in the latest advances; whether it is products or procedures. So having an academy like this helps brand upskill surgeons in the region.”
S+N Academy Singapore houses a state-of-the-art digital operating suite of the future including handheld robotics, 4K arthroscopy towers, surgical navigation tools, live transmission capabilities and touch-screen interfaces. The digital experience is supported by a virtual reality simulation studio, a tech-enabled teaching auditorium, and a professional broadcast studio. Experts can record and live-stream surgical techniques to educate fellow healthcare professionals across the globe.
In addition to training healthcare practitioners and surgeons, Smith+Nephew is also looking into promoting education about MedTech amongst the general public.
Smith+Nephew’s Senior Director of Medical Education & Societies (Asia Pacific), Saurabh Sharma stated, “We are expanding digitally and apart from healthcare practitioners, we are also incorporating a lot of patient education programmes, just to have a wider increase and visibility of general understanding of the diseases”.
He added, “Not specifically our products but general awareness of the diseases, (such as) what treatment options are available to them”
As an added commitment to medical innovation, S+N Academy Singapore will partner on initiatives with the healthcare community, including collaboration with start-ups, early-stage investors and industry partners to support the development of innovations and medical institutions to utilise the latest training infrastructure.
In conclusion, Myra Eskes, President of APAC and Global Service, Smith+Nephew said, “ Smith+Nephew has a strong and successful business in Asia-Pacific and ambitious growth plans to provide our medical technology to more surgeons and nurses. It is impossible to overstate the importance of education and hands-on experience as we take customers on this journey, and the new Academy will be vital in improving access to the latest innovation to drive better clinical outcomes.”