Accredify and Parkway Pantai to Issue Verifiable Digital COVID-19 Swab Results to Travellers

• Parkway Shenton will be the first healthcare provider in Singapore to issue verifiable digital COVID-19 swab results to travellers.
• Digital travel credentials issued by Accredify and Parkway are in line with international standards and the Singapore Government’s requirements, making them internationally recognisable.
• Travellers can present their medical record’s unique QR code to immigration authorities for immediate verification via Accredify’s mobile app, providing an efficient method for Singaporean authorities to ensure that all outbound travellers are COVID-compliant.

SINGAPORE, 23 Oct 2020 – Accredify, a Singapore-based firm that helps organisations create and issue verifiable digital documents, today announced its partnership with Parkway Pantai to issue digital tamper-proof COVID-19 swab results to travellers in Singapore. Parkway Pantai is Singapore’s largest private integrated healthcare provider and parent company to four private hospitals, ancillary medical services and Parkway Shenton, a primary care network with more than 60 clinics across the island.

As part of Singapore’s pre-departure test (PDT), travellers must obtain COVID-19 swab results before travel out of Singapore is granted. Currently, COVID-19 test results are issued as physical documents by most healthcare providers. However, digital COVID-19 swab results are able to enable a smoother travel process for outbound travellers, immigration authorities, and airlines with its interoperability and ease of authentication.

In addition, digital travel credentials such as Parkway’s verifiable COVID-19 swab result are based on frameworks which Accredify co-created with GovTech Singapore, and have datafields that are aligned to physical result certificates currently issued by healthcare providers. As such, digital travel credentials issued by Accredify and Parkway are in line with international standards and the Singapore Government’s requirements, making them internationally recognisable.

Digital COVID-19 swab results issued using Accredify’s system are tamper-proof and easily verifiable. By leveraging on blockchain technology, an individual’s test results can be easily traced to authorised healthcare providers, allowing authorities to easily determine the authenticity of an individual's COVID-19 health status.

Parkway Shenton will be the first healthcare provider in Singapore to issue verifiable digital travel credentials to travellers. By the end of October, at least 23 of Parkway Shenton’s clinics will begin the issuance of digital COVID-19 test results (please refer to Appendix 1 for the detailed list). Discussions are currently underway to integrate Accredify’s technology into Parkway Pantai’s healthcare networks in the overseas markets where it operates.

Edmund Kwok, CEO of Parkway Shenton, said: “Parkway Shenton has been at the forefront of Singapore’s fight against COVID-19, from border screening to providing end-to-end service, from swabbing and testing to resulting, for dormitories and SASH clinics. Through this partnership, together with our ParkwayHealth Laboratory, we continue to contribute to Singapore’s COVID-19 efforts by not only lending travellers added convenience, but also offering those who do their pre-departure tests with Parkway Shenton a greater level of confidence and assurance in the veracity of their COVID-19 test results.”

Upon receiving their digital test results, travellers can choose to store and access swab results sent by Parkway’s healthcare providers in Accredify’s mobile app – the Digital Health Passport. To verify a digital COVID-19 record on-site, travellers can access the document in the app and present the record’s unique QR code to immigration authorities for immediate verification. This provides an efficient method for Singaporean authorities and airlines to ensure that all outbound travellers are COVID-compliant.

Quah Zheng Wei, CEO of Accredify, said: “Accredify is committed to the Smart Reopening of Safe Economies. When the pandemic struck, we repurposed our core technology for the healthcare industry to provide a way to keep our community safe. We hope our partnership with Parkway Pantai will lead the way in making the issuance of tamper-proof medical records the new standard and in so doing facilitate Singapore’s return to normality.”

Steven Koh, Director, Government Digital Services, GovTech, said: “We are pleased to collaborate with Accredify and Parkway Pantai to develop this solution. Accredify has built upon GovTech’s OpenAttestation framework for HealthCert, a verifiable travel credential standard created by GovTech, to enhance the safety and efficiency of travel for all outbound travellers and immigration authorities. We look forward to more collaborations with industry partners and responding to the pandemic with technology together.”

Accredify’s free-to-use Digital Health Passport was co-developed with SGInnovate and supported by the National Research Foundation. The mobile app was created to resolve the issue of lost or damaged physical medical records by providing an easily accessible, portable repository of medical documents for citizens. In addition to the high level of privacy attained by storing encrypted medical data on the blockchain, the mobile app is integrated with SingPass for a secure and convenient log-in process. Users can also set link expiries when sharing documents via email or messaging platforms such as WhatsApp or Telegram for added security.

The launch of the Digital Health Passport follows the success of its trial-test by Singapore’s Ministry of Health and Ministry of Manpower to distribute verifiable COVID-19 discharge memos to migrant workers recovering from the coronavirus. To date, the discharge memos have been verified over 1.5 million times across different locations in Singapore.

Dr Lim Jui, CEO of SGInnovate, said: “As Singapore begins to ease social and travel restrictions to prepare for the reopening of the economy, efficient digital tools that can quickly verify health records will become critical, to ensure the continuous safety of our community. Leveraging blockchain technology, the Digital Health Passport ensures greater transparency, security and privacy in the management of medical records. With the potential to become a valuable tool with wide applications across the healthcare, travel and government sectors, the Digital Health Passport clearly highlights how Deep Tech can provide meaningful innovations that can be integrated into the everyday life and make a difference in shaping the future.”

For more information on Accredify, follow @Accredify on LinkedIn.

Additional Information

To view Accredify and SGInnovate’s Official press release about the Digital Health Passport, please click here.

To view more details about Accredify’s Digital Health Passport, please click here.

About Accredify

Headquartered in Singapore, Accredify is a SaaS company that supports organisations in their document lifecycle management and ensures their documents are easily verifiable. With a dedicated team that embraces the highest standards of customer service, security, legal compliance, Accredify’s objective is to be the trusted solution for managing and verifying documents anywhere and anytime.

About Parkway Pantai

Parkway Pantai is one of Asia’s largest integrated private healthcare providers operating in Malaysia, Singapore, India, Greater China and Brunei. For over 40 years, its Mount Elizabeth, Gleneagles, Pantai, Parkway and Fortis brands have established themselves as the region’s best known brands in private healthcare, synonymous with best-in-class patient experience and outcomes. Leveraging its global track record for medical excellence and managing world-class hospitals, Parkway Pantai is committed to making a difference in people’s lives through excellent patient care, steadily expanding its reach in markets where demand for quality care is strong and growing. Parkway Pantai is a leading healthcare player in its home markets of Malaysia, Singapore and India and key growth markets of China and Hong Kong. It is part of IHH Healthcare, one of the world’s largest healthcare groups by market capitalisation. IHH operates more than 15,000 licensed beds across 78 hospitals in 10 countries worldwide, offering the full spectrum of integrated healthcare services from clinics to hospitals to quaternary care and a wide range of ancillary services including medical education. For more information, please visit www.parkwaypantai.com.

About SGInnovate

At SGInnovate, we build and scale Deep Tech startups into high potential companies with global impact. We believe that hard global problems can be solved using Deep Tech, and Singapore, where we are based, is uniquely positioned to realise Deep Tech innovations that can tackle these challenges. Our Deep Tech Nexus Strategy is focused on adding tangible value to the Deep Tech startup ecosystem in two key areas – development of Human Capital and deployment of Investment Capital. With the support of our partners and co-investors, we back entrepreneurial scientists through equity-based investments, access to talent and business-building advice. Our efforts are prioritised around emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Tech, MedTech and Quantum Tech, which represent impactful and scalable answers to global challenges.

SGInnovate is a private-limited company wholly owned by the Singapore Government. For more information, please visit www.sginnovate.com.

Media contacts

Quah Zheng Wei
CEO and Co-Founder, Accredify
[email protected]

Eva Chow
IN.FOM (Partnering agency of SGInnovate)
[email protected]

Eugenia Lee
SGInnovate
[email protected]

Matthew Loh
Parkway Pantai
[email protected]

Appendix 1: Parkway Shenton clinic listing for the Pre-Departure Testing