SINGAPORE — Imagine your next specialist’s appointment at a hospital being a true partnership. Instead of being prescribed a care plan outright, your doctor seeks your feedback, discusses your progress and treatment goals, and co-designs a plan that fits your needs and preferences – which in some patients may mean reducing medication or cutting out unnecessary tests.
As part of National University Health System (NUHS)’s Apt Care programme, NUH launched its Apt Care campaign in March last year with a clear purpose: to reinforce a culture of prioritising patient outcomes and value.
One of the key NUH Apt Care initiatives was a collaboration with the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore (NCIS), to introduce an appropriate care end-of-life pathway to cancer patients. Launched in October last year, the programme uses a multidisciplinary approach involving clinicians, nurses, and pharmacists to enhance end-of-life care. The goal is to help patients live as well as possible by reducing unnecessary medication and interventions, allowing them to focus on comfort and quality of life.
When a suitable patient is identified, their care team reviews the care plan to focus on the patient’s comfort and overall well-being. This tailored plan could involve reducing non-essential medications, re-evaluating the number of unnecessary outpatient appointments, and cutting down or discontinuing invasive procedures like blood glucose monitoring (BGM) pricks.
Between October 2024 and August 2025, 108 patients were enrolled in the programme which saw significant benefits:
He added: "Our clinical staff have also benefited. The time freed up through streamlining tests and procedures allows them to devote more attention to their patients’ most critical needs. Our nurses have also reported greater job satisfaction from being empowered to customise care plans that truly prioritise the needs and well-being of our end-of-life patients."
She added: “Our nurses felt the impact too - a recent survey of 78 nurses found that around 85 per cent of them expressed confidence in following the new workflow. Encouragingly, around 87 per cent felt empowered to reduce unnecessary testing with this project in place. Introducing a clear, evidence-based workflow can help to minimise unnecessary monitoring, allowing for more appropriate distribution of resources to facilitate patient-centred care.”
Beyond these initiatives, NUH working with its partners in NUHS to:
In summing up the Apt Care drive in NUH, Adj A/Prof Amelia Santosa, one of the co-leads of the Apt Care campaign at NUH and also Head and Senior Consultant, Division of Rheumatology and Allergy, Department of Medicine, NUH, said: “We are heartened to see the encouraging reception by both patients and healthcare colleagues from our early initiatives. With an ageing population and increasing number of patients with multiple medical conditions in Singapore, patients accumulate more appointments, medications and tests, which need to be purposefully consolidated. Hence, now more than ever, Apt Care is becoming a more critical concept for healthcare institutions to embrace and incorporate. Our ultimate objective is to continuously find ways to deliver care that is clinically effective and focused on patient-defined outcomes, while at the same time, promote greater healthcare value for everyone involved - from patients and their families to our healthcare staff and the hospital itself.”
