Integrated General Hospital

The IGH programme strives to deliver sustainable integrated patient care across healthcare settings, from acute hospitals to the community.

Initial IGH care model pilot implemented at Alexandra Hospital demonstrated effectiveness and acceptability among patients with multimorbidity and complex needs requiring holistic generalist hospital care. In extending the IGH care model for holistic non-subspecialist team-based care, MOHT and MOH share the view that community hospitals (CH) can help alleviate the demand for acute hospital beds. MOHT hence conducted a review of existing MOH policies and a CH environmental scan as part of the Community Hospital of the Future (CHoF) initiative. A series of design-thinking workshops was conducted to identify CH care redesign opportunities. Our team is working closely with the project teams to sharpen the care redesign proposals and prepare for implementation in a phased approach. We are also working towards establishing a collaborative platform to enable the exchange of ideas, resources, and best practices, ultimately amplifying the impact of these innovations.

The IGH Programme is also administering the Mobile Inpatient Care@Home (MIC@Home) Regulatory and Financing Sandbox commissioned by MOH. The care model is currently made available to most public hospitals in Singapore. MIC@Home, better known as Hospital-at-Home (HaH) overseas, is an alternative inpatient care delivery model that offers clinically-suitable patients the option of being hospitalised in their own homes, instead of a hospital ward. This model delivers inpatient-level care through the use of digital tools such as remote monitoring, and round-the-clock care by the professional care teams consisting of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and allied health professionals from the public hospitals and community medical partners. From the results of the initial local pilots, the MIC@Home Sandbox has shown potential to result in better patient outcomes and relieve ongoing capacity constraints in hospitals.

Technology plays a crucial role in supporting hospital and community healthcare initiatives. The IGH programme augments ongoing clinical pilots with digital enablers to better facilitate healthcare delivery in Singapore. We support national care redesign pilots like One-Rehab across more than 100 sites in Singapore.  Another project, the OCP (One-Care Plan) Application, supports patients in the community, by allowing community health and social care providers from different institutions to securely share patient information, enabling coordinated care planning.