Bringing the hospital home

In an indication of the way in which healthcare is being transformed in Singapore, a pilot programme for virtual wards has been expanded to include four more public healthcare institutions. Called the Mobile Inpatient Care at Home (MIC@Home), the pilot project enables more patients with a wider range of conditions to receive hospital-type care in the comfort of their homes. The pilot, which began in April 2022 at the National University Health System, Singapore General Hospital and Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, is now also available at Changi General Hospital, KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Sengkang General Hospital and Tan Tock Seng Hospital. The pilot now covers all public hospitals except for the Institute of Mental Health, which could offer it later.

What is distinctive about the programme is that patients receiving treatment at home enjoy round-the-clock access to care delivered by a team of healthcare professionals through teleconsultations and home visits, until they are deemed fit for discharge. Indeed, clinical care such as intravenous medication and blood tests can be administered at home. However, a patient can be transferred to hospital should his condition deteriorate. This is, of course, a crucial consideration because the whole point of healthcare, whether delivered in a traditional hospital setting or innovatively at home, is to ensure that the physical well-being of the patient is not compromised in any way at any point of his medical journey. This expectation is taken for granted when patients are in the care of doctors and nurses in actual hospital wards. MIC@Home will succeed only if patients and their families are confident that standards of care are not being lowered by receiving hospital-type care at home.