The role of academic health science systems in the transformation of dentistry: The Singapore experience

Clinicians and researchers have traditionally worked in independent silos, with limited collaboration to rapidly translate discovery into clinical practice. At institutional level, hospitals and universities have also tended to work independently with limited success in leveraging each other's strengths with a view to improving population health. The consequences include fragmentation of clinical services, poor communication between researchers and clinicians, lengthy delays in identification of clinical problems requiring innovative solutions through research and a generation of clinicians who are not well equipped with all the skills to address future health needs. Academic Health Science Systems (AHSS) have been proposed as a mechanism for driving effective collaboration between academia and clinical services. There are examples of well established AHSS and the benefits have been articulated. In Singapore, three AHSS have been established over the past 15 years. National dental specialty centres and one dental school have been embedded in AHSS and have well established multi-disciplinary collaboration across clinical and academic domains. The aim of this commentary is to describe the concept of an AHSS and some of the areas where dentistry in Singapore has been transformed by having key dental institutions embedded in an AHSS.