More patients receive hospital-level care at home under MOH scheme

Programme being progressively expanded to include those not admitted into hospitals

- Yap Wei Qiang Correspondent

Panellists at a fireside chat during the NUHS@Home fifth anniversary celebrations on Oct 3, moderated by NUHS deputy chief executive Jason Phua (third from left). Also present were (from left) Ms Claudia Tan, nurse clinician and advanced practice nurse, NUHS@Home; NUHS@Home lead Stephanie Ko; and Mr and Mrs Paul Faulkner, a former NUHS@Home patient and caregiver, respectively. The other two public healthcare clusters have also implemented the home care programme.

More patients have been receiving hospital-level care in their homes as the nationwide Mobile Inpatient Care @ Home programme (MIC@Home) is progressively expanded to those who had not been admitted into hospitals.

These patients include those who were referred to the programme through private general practitioners (GPs), polyclinics, community care teams and nursing homes.

When the Ministry of Health (MOH) officially launched MIC@Home in 2022 after earlier pilots, the programme was for patients who were recovering after hospital stays, to ease the demand for hospital beds.

On Oct 3, the National University Health System (NUHS) announced that its version of the programme, called NUHS@Home, has cared for nearly 7,000 patients at home to date, and saved over 42,000 hospital bed days.

NUHS, a public healthcare cluster looking after the population in the west, piloted NUHS@Home in September 2020.

At the fifth anniversary celebrations of NUHS@Home, the cluster said it has progressively expanded the programme since 2024.

Up till Aug 31, it had cared for about 200 patients referred through community touchpoints.

These patients had conditions such as pneumonia, urinary tract infections and cellulitis, which commonly affect older adults with limited mobility.