Bio
Prof KH Tan is the Group Director & Senior Associate Dean at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute for Patient Safety & Quality (IPSQ) and serves as Advisor to the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) Patient Safety & Risk Council. He is also a Senior Consultant in the Maternal Fetal Medicine Department and Head of Perinatal Audit & Epidemiology at KKH.
In 2017, Prof Tan initiated the SingHealth Patient Advocacy Network (SPAN), a self-driven network of patients and caregivers that collaborates with healthcare teams to enhance the patient experience and ensure quality care. He currently serves as Advisor to SPAN. Furthermore, he was instrumental in founding the Alliance of Patients' Organizations Singapore (APOS), which was registered on 20 September 2023. APOS promotes patient engagement and collaborates with advocacy groups and healthcare institutions to amplify the patient voice in healthcare decision-making.
Prof Tan has led two large-scale Resilience in Academic Medicine surveys for SingHealth staff in 2019 and 2022, focusing on burnout, empathy, sleep, and workplace civility. Since 2021, he has served as the MOH Cluster Deployment Lead (CDL) for SingHealth under the Singapore Ensure Safer System (ESS) national framework, driving advancements in healthcare reliability.
In education, he serves as the Program Director for the Duke-NUS Medical School Graduate Certificate in Patient Safety & Healthcare Quality, as well as the NUS Graduate Diploma and Master’s Programs in Patient Safety & Healthcare Quality, since 2023.
On the international front, Prof Tan has been a member of the WHO expert group on Patient Safety since 2018 and has provided technical consultation on patient safety and healthcare quality to the Ministries of Health in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. He is actively involved in the WHO Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030 (GPSAP). In 2023, he initiated an MOU between SingHealth and WHO to develop the Global Knowledge Sharing Platform for Patient Safety (GKPS), fostering the global exchange of best practices in patient safety (www.gkps.net).
Prof Tan has been recognized for his outstanding contributions to healthcare quality and safety. As the Integrated Perinatal Care Project Team Leader for KKH, he received the WHO United Arab Emirates (WHO-UAE) Health Foundation Prize in 2009. He was also the recipient of Singapore’s inaugural National Outstanding Clinical Quality Activist Award in 2010. In acknowledgment of his achievements in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, he was conferred the Benjamin Henry Sheares Professorship by NUS in 2019.
Education
Master of Medicine (Obstetrics & Gynaecology)
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery
National University of Singapore, Singapore