Ms Paulin Koh

Chief Nursing Officer, Ministry of Health, Singapore

Ms Paulin Koh is the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) at Ministry of Health (MOH), Singapore. As CNO, she provides leadership and strategic direction for the development of Nursing and its services at national level and works with various agencies and healthcare clusters on the development of nursing roles and services, policies, workforce development, training, and education matters. Concurrently, she is also the Registrar of the Singapore Nursing Board, which licences and regulates nursing/ midwifery practice and education.

 

Prior to assuming the CNO’s role in July 2020, Ms Koh was holding concurrent appointments as the Chief Nurse of Changi General Hospital (CGH) and Deputy Group Chief Nurse, SingHealth. She had been instrumental in starting Community Nursing service at CGH, which was supported by the MOH Regional Health System (RHS)-led Community Nursing pilot program. She chaired the MOH National Nursing Taskforce (NNT) Community Nursing Subgroup and Workgroup on Development of Competency Framework where she played a pivotal role in shaping the strategic direction and recommendations on the practice settings, roles and competencies of Community Nurses in Singapore.

 

Ms. Koh has an interest in the development of Advanced Practice Nurses in Singapore – starting with the amendment of the Nurses & Midwives Act in 2003-5 to make provision for the certification of APN practice, the implementation of a new track for Paediatric APNs in 2012 and the progressive review of the training of APNs and its internship program till now. Related to advancing nurses’ roles, she had also advocated for collaborative practice role of the nurse midwife at her previous organization, KK Women’s & Children’s Hospital (KKH), where her nursing career had spanned almost 20 years. At KKH, she had served as nursing champion and lead internal auditor for JCI/ ISO/ BCP certifications and contributed to the growth of nursing where she was responsible for the set-up of the Magnet Nursing Excellence framework and National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) Data Benchmarking for the hospital in 2012.

 

At national level, Ms. Koh had advocated for key policies and initiatives to elevate the nursing profession in Singapore. Some of her involvement includes being member of MOH National Nursing Taskforce (NNT), Future Nursing Career Review Committee (FNCRC), MOH APN Development Committee, Co-Chairperson of National Nursing Education Committee and Collaborative Prescribing Steering Committee, Board Member of SNB and Chairperson of SNB APN Accreditation Committee and SNB Registration Committee.