Guiding Policymakers Toward Better AI Ethics Integration in Healthcare Regulation—Lessons from Singapore

Abstract

In terms of rollout, comprehensiveness, and strategy, Singapore’s regulatory landscape governing the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare has generally kept pace with other global leaders in AI advancement. However, establishing a robust and holistic regulatory framework that evolves along with emerging technologies is not easy—especially in healthcare, where the stakes are high and resources may be limited. We conducted a structured scoping analysis of key AI regulatory and professional documents in Singapore, selected using predefined inclusion criteria. Documents were systematically mapped against Savulescu et al.’s nine categories of ethical risk, followed by cross-document comparison to identify integration gaps and inconsistencies, and benchmarking against international AI governance frameworks. These recommendations are generalizable beyond Singapore for developers, implementers, healthcare professionals and patients and include dealing with bias in AI, enhancing human productivity without deskilling, facilitating more informed decision-making, and cultivating greater knowledge exchange between clinicians and patients, to name a few.