Aymeric Lim Is Building AI-Literacy for a New Generation of Health Care
Newsweek · C · trust 33/100
Professor Aymeric Lim is the CEO of National University Hospital (NUH) in Singapore, a major tertiary referral institution that offers adult, pediatric and obstetrics and gynecology services under one roof. Lim is also a physician and professor with the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the NUS Yon Loo School of Medicine.
In an interview with Newsweek , Lim discussed the mission of NUH, how his experience with teaching and humanitarian work shape his leadership role and how he's transforming NUH into an AI-literate institution.
What are your main priorities as CEO? How have those evolved over your time at NUH?
My focus is on ensuring that NUH remains future-ready for 2030 and beyond. As our population ages and health care needs become more complex, we need to continue delivering world-class care in ways that are sustainable, accessible and centered on patients.
We are advancing new models of care — supported by workforce redesign, digital technologies, AI, telehealth and remote monitoring — to help us care for patients more effectively both within and beyond the hospital. At the same time, we must continue investing in our people, maintain strong clinical outcomes and advance education, research and innovation as an academic medical center.
Over time, my priorities have evolved from sustaining excellence to ensuring that NUH remains future-ready for the challenges and opportunities ahead. While health care will continue to evolve, our purpose remains the same: to care for patients, educate future health care professionals and advance medicine for the communities we serve.
What personal values do you find most crucial in your role as CEO?
My leadership is grounded in service: to our staff, our patients and our country. For our staff, it means ensuring everyone has a sense of purpose in the work they do. For our patients, it means delivering the best possible care. For Singapore, it means ensuring that NUH fulfils its role as the university hospital of Singapore through excellence in health care, education and research.
I am also guided by values such as justice, mercy, humility and fairness. As leaders, we must treat people with respect, support them when times are difficult and never lose sight of our mission.
Teaching is both a privilege and a responsibility. It keeps us learning because every question challenges us to think more deeply about what we do and why we do it. In that sense, teaching makes us better clinicians and better leaders.
I also value the exchange that comes with it. While we share our experience with students and younger colleagues, we learn from their questions, perspectives and ideas. That culture of learning helps us continue to improve and adapt as health care evolves.
Education is central to who we are. The idea of "Teach to Serve" has long guided us. Every student we train will go on to care for patients and communities we may never meet. In that way, teaching is ultimately an act of service. By investing in the next generation of health care professionals, we help ensure that high-quality care continues well into the future.
You’ve stated your goal is to make NUH “AI-literate.” How can AI transform operations at NUH?
AI has become part of how we deliver care, run operations and support teams. Our approach is practical and grounded in real work. AI is being used to support clinical documentation, operational analysis, service recovery, workflow redesign and clinical decision-making, etc.
To achieve our goal of becoming an AI-literate organization, we are investing heavily in capability building across all job groups, from patient service associates to specialists. Today, AI is available not only to data scientists and technologists, but also to clinicians, nurses, allied health professionals, administrators and operations teams. Capability building has been institutionalized. Over 47 percent of our workforce of more than 9,000 staff have completed structured AI training.
What inspired your passion for humanitarian work?
The practice of medicine exposes you to both the fragility of life and the universality of human suffering. Whether you are caring for someone in Singapore, Afghanistan or Cambodia, people ultimately want the same things: relief from suffering, dignity and hope.
Those experiences reinforced my belief that health care is fundamentally about service. As health care professionals, we have skills that can make a meaningful difference to vulnerable populations, and I believe we have a responsibility to contribute where we can.
Humanitarian work is also a powerful learning experience. It often exposes us to diseases, injuries and health care challenges that we may encounter less frequently in our usual practice. Working in resource-constrained environments sharpens clinical judgment, adaptability and problem-solving, and ultimately makes us better doctors.
At the same time, it reminds us how fortunate we are to have strong health care systems. It challenges us to think beyond our own institutions and consider how we can share knowledge, build capability and improve care more broadly.
What is one piece of advice that you wish you could give to your younger self?
I would probably tell my younger self something like the advice that the ex-Chief Executive of National University Health System, Professor Benjamin Ong, once gave me: don't just react to the system around you, help build the system you want to work in.
Early in my career, I tend to focus on solving the problem immediately in front of me. That remains important, but over time I have learned the value of thinking further ahead, shaping systems and creating conditions that allow others to succeed. In short, don't just "eat what you cook." Learn to "cook what you want to eat." Have a vision for the future and be prepared to build towards it.
What excites you about the future of health care at NUH?
We are at a point where advances in digital technologies, data and AI are…
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