SINGAPORE - There are just four physiotherapists at the 224-bed Sree Narayana Mission (Singapore) nursing home, but some bed-bound residents still get an extra therapy session in the afternoon that helps them live more comfortably.
This is because 20 nursing aides and healthcare assistants have been trained to provide essential physiotherapy exercises, such as passive range of motion moves and chest physiotherapy for the residents, to prevent the stiffening of joints and mucus build-up.
This was made possible by a cross-training initiative aimed at upskilling the care staff while addressing manpower challenges – the brainchild of Ms Jezsica Ida Su, the home’s director of nursing and head of therapy.
Ms Su, who joined the home in June 2019 and has 15 years of nursing experience after switching from a career in human resources, said her plan is to train the rest of the care staff to do the physiotherapy exercises. The home currently has 85 care staff.
The mother of three, who is pursuing a PhD in nursing, was one of 16 recipients of the Superstar Award at the 14th Singapore Health Quality Service Awards 2024 on Jan 23. The event has been organised annually by SingHealth, one of three public healthcare clusters here, since 2011.
Dr Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State for Health and the event’s guest of honour, highlighted the achievements of a few winners such as Ms Su and Ms Nennie Fadillah Hasnawi, who leads one of Changi General Hospital’s patient service associate teams at its emergency department.
Ms Nennie was one of the first patient service associates to be deployed in a new initiative to have the associates support and care for patients awaiting admission to the emergency department. She advocated having more associates to help relieve nurses there of non-clinical tasks, such as delivering meals and helping patients contact their families.
Also given the Superstar award was Associate Professor Lee Lui Shiong, the head and senior consultant at Sengkang General Hospital’s urology department.
He led the launch of a system to partially automate the tracking of ureteric stents – tubes placed in the ureter to help drain urine from the kidney – after observing that manually tracking such implants could be prone to human error.
“Previously, we would manually trawl the record periodically to see which patient has forgotten.” While not many implant removals were missed, the repetitive task of checking the books every week or month could impact morale, Prof Lee added.
“Most patients have the implants for two to four weeks, but some come back (to remove them) late because they have forgotten about it,” he said, adding that patients are generally fine if the stent is removed within four to five months of insertion.
However, implants that are left in the body for too long are difficult to remove and they can put patients at risk of complications such as compromised kidney function.
Another six Best Team awards and awards in the Star, Gold and Silver categories were given at the event.
The recipients were selected based on commendations from patients and colleagues for going the extra mile, in addition to the number of compliments and service awards they received.
In all, 4,444 awards were given to healthcare professionals and teams from 45 public and private healthcare institutions and organisations from the community care sector for delivering quality care and patient experience, at the ceremony held at the National University of Singapore’s University Cultural Centre.
