
Telehealth
To shift care beyond the hospital to the community, national Telehealth pilots are being progressively rolled out across Singapore. The initiatives seek to trial its effectiveness in various use cases, and bring patients greater convenience, enhance patient access to healthcare services, enable proactive monitoring, and optimise manpower and resources. These Telehealth initiatives are: Smart Health Video Consultation, Smart Health TeleRehab, and Smart Health Vital Signs Monitoring.
Such initiatives enable patients to receive care in convenient locations of their choice. Patients can also receive more timely advice and intervention to manage their conditions. It may also reduce caregiver burden and empower individuals to take an active role in their health.
Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS), the health technology agency for Singapore, has put in place national IT platforms and is working with various public and private healthcare institutions to pilot the telehealth platforms and telehealth services.
Smart Health Vital Signs Monitoring
Smart Health Vital Signs Monitoring (VSM) will enable the remote monitoring of vital signs such as the blood pressure, blood glucose, or weight of patients with conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and heart or pulmonary diseases. Patients can in turn receive more timely advice and intervention to manage their conditions, reducing unplanned visits to the Specialist Outpatient Clinics or Emergency Department. As a whole, the use of VSM can enable more regular monitoring, improve patient management and reduce hospital visits and readmissions.
Primary Tech-Enhanced Care (PTEC)
One of the programmes that harnesses VSM is the Primary Tech-Enhanced Care (PTEC) programme, a collaborative effort by the MOH Office for Healthcare Transformation (MOHT) and the three Polyclinic Clusters - National Healthcare Group Polyclinics (NHGP), National University Polyclinics (NUP) and SingHealth Polyclinics (SHP), and supported by IHiS. PTEC aims to provide care support with simple-to-use technologies (e.g. VSM devices, chatbot) that enable patients with chronic diseases to better self-manage their condition and improve their health from home while reducing visits to the polyclinic.
PTEC will benefit patients who want to better control their chronic conditions, but have busy lifestyles and/or are less ambulant. With PTEC, these patients can self-manage their conditions to prevent disease progression and avoid complications.
Building on the encouraging and positive outcomes from the one-year pilot, PTEC is launching the first programme, i.e. Home Blood Pressure Monitoring Programme, nationally from August 2020 across the three polyclinic clusters (NHGP, NUP and SHP). The long-term goal for PTEC is to test-bed more solutions and provide a full range of support for patients with different chronic care needs. The next steps for PTEC will be: (1) extending to include other chronic conditions such as diabetes with e-coaching and home HbA1c tests in the future, and (2) expanding to more primary care partners to benefit more patients.
Home Blood Pressure Monitoring Programme
As the first programme of PTEC, this Home Blood Pressure (BP) Monitoring Programme aims to enable patients with high blood pressure to better manage their conditions in the comfort at their home, with the help of simple technology and tele-consultations from polyclinic.
The programme consists:
Patients will monitor their BP control at home with a Bluetooth-enabled BP machine at least once a week and the readings will be shared with their polyclinic care team through the VSM (Health Harmony) app.
The care team will monitor patient’s average BP readings on a monthly basis and will contact the patient if his/her conditions are not well-controlled, or if there is a need to adjust medications. Care team will schedule a tele-consultation if there is no need for a polyclinic visit. During the tele-consultation, care team will also provide advice and personalised education on lifestyle changes.
In between tele-consultations and polyclinic visits, patient can also activate the bilingual (English and Chinese) PTEC Chatbot, which provides timely and interactive advice through automated SMS. It also prompts patients who have missed taking their readings and guides them towards appropriate self-care and encouragement towards a healthier lifestyle.
If you are interested in this programme, you can approach your doctor or nurse during your usual polyclinic visit. Your care team will advise whether this is suitable for you.
Participating Institutions
List of participating institutions with contact details
National Healthcare Group Polyclinics | 6355 3000 |
SingHealth Polyclinics
(from Sep 2020) | 6643 6969 |
National University Polyclinics
(from first half of 2021) | 6663 6847 |
Resources
Flyers & User Guides
Instructional Videos
PTEC Home BP Monitoring: How to Install App and Pair Device
PTEC Home BP Monitoring: How to Measure and Share Your BP Reading
PTEC Home BP Monitoring Chatbot: How to Use It
FAQs
Q: What is the cost of this programme?
A: Your usual consultation, medication and lab tests costs and subsidies remain unchanged. This programme comprises additionally a Bluetooth BP Machine, Health Harmony App and Chatbot service, which will all enjoy subsidies from MOH to make it affordable for you as long as you stay on the programme. You will be on this programme for at least two years for your health benefit. Further fee and subsidies details can be obtained when you sign up. Only Singapore Citizens and PRs are eligible for the subsidy.
Q: Can I drop out of this programme halfway?
A: There will be no refund if you drop out before the minimum two years and you will need to return a $75 subsidy on the Bluetooth BP Machine. We strongly encourage you to remain on this programme to better manage your condition.
Programme Terms of Participation
Please view the
PTEC Programme's Terms of Participation in detail.