The Woodlands Health Campus topping out event on 12 February 2022.
In line with our promise to deliver “Better Health. With You”, Woodlands Health (WH) has been working closely with community and primary care partners to bring care to residents in the North-Western region, ahead of its official opening in 2023.
TOPPING OUT OF WOODLANDS HEALTH CAMPUS
WH marked its topping out milestone on 12 February 2022, and will progressively open from December 2023, starting first with the specialist outpatient clinics. The rest of the hospital, including the emergency department and inpatient wards, will open from May 2024. The event was graced by Health Minister Ong Ye Kung, Senior Minister of State for Health Dr Janil Puthucheary, grassroots advisers from Sembawang and Marsiling-Yew Tee GRCs, Woodlands Health Development Board Committee members, community partners, contractors, and consultants. They witnessed the lifting of a steel beam to the top of Tower B of the Integrated Acute and Community Hospital. To commemorate this milestone, more than 200 people, including WH staff and consultants, penned their well-wishes on the beam.
The nursing team at the CTF.
Receiving the first patient at the CTF.
CONTRIBUTING TO THE NATIONAL COVID-19 RESPONSE
In 2021, when Singapore experienced new surges of COVID-19 infection brought on by the Delta variant, WH lent its support in setting up and running a new COVID-19 Treatment Facility (CTF) at NTUC Health Nursing Home (Tampines) in September. The nursing home was converted into a CTF for COVID-19 patients who were generally well, but had underlying health conditions that required close monitoring.
WH medical professionals and operations colleagues oversaw the development of the clinical workflows for CTF@Tampines and ensured that the facility ran smoothly. A multidisciplinary team — including geriatricians, rehabilitation and community hospital physicians, palliative care physicians, Emergency Department clinicians, nurses, psychiatrists, medical social workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and pharmacists — provided comprehensive and quality care to the patients. WH cared for about 2,600 patients for more than six months at this facility.
The NurseFirst helpline was launched in February 2022 to provide callers with advice on where to seek treatment.
PILOTING AN INNOVATIVE CARE ECOSYSTEM
In February 2022, WH launched NurseFirst — a helpline manned by nurses trained in emergency triage. These nurses would advise callers on where to seek treatment depending on their medical conditions. Healthcare options included advice to visit the nearest General Practitioner (GP) clinic, the Urgent Care Centre (UCC), or the Emergency Department of a hospital. In the first three months of its launch, the NurseFirst team attended to some 900 triage calls.
This helpline, together with the GPFirst programme in the Northern region and UCC@Admiralty, demonstrated WH’s efforts to create a holistic system of care, improve the right-siting of care, and make care more accessible within the community. As of March 2022, more than 60 per cent of GP clinics in this region had enrolled in the GPFirst programme, which coached residents to consult their family doctor first for non-emergency conditions. In FY2021, the UCC@ Admiralty attended to over 10,000 patients with urgent but non-life-threatening episodes, of which 10 per cent were referred by the GPFirst programme.
Senior Staff Nurse Jeya Periasamy (centre), a community nurse, at the home of a patient.
PROVIDING CARE IN THE COMMUNITY
For patients transiting from hospital to home, the WH Community and Integrated Care Team (CIC) are on hand to support them with their care needs so that they are able to stay well and age gracefully in the community. Residents who are well or who have chronic illnesses can also visit any of the nine WH Community Nurse Posts located within their neighbourhoods to have their conditions reviewed or to seek health advice.
To increase public health literacy, WH continued its collaboration with the National Library Board (NLB) in 2021 to organise health talks for senior residents, to encourage them to keep healthy and stay active. A pilot programme named ‘Action: Strengthen Mental Resilience’ (A:SMR) was also held at the Woodlands Regional Library to educate youths and working adults on how to strengthen their mental resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, WH partnered Muis, MENDAKI, MESRA (M³) and Masjid Yusof on a series of health talks for residents living in the North region.