Singapore’s Ministry of Health recently opened the Ng Teng Fong Center for Healthcare Innovation at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH). The Ng Teng Fong Center is one of the 9 new developments under HealthCity Novena Master Plan 2020 developed by the Ministry of Health. The new center will hosts the Center for Healthcare Innovation (CHI). CHI is an open innovation center which comprises a financial lever in the form of a SGD 52 million (USD 32 million) innovation program; a physical space of 25,000 sqm featuring system innovations, expert knowledge networks and tools; and a co-learning network of 37 innovation partners.
A Command, Control and Communications (C3) system, developed by TTSH and the Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS) and supported by the Ministry of Health (MOH) is at pre-production stage at the TTSH Operations Command Centre located at CHI. The C3 system integrates multiple systems and sensors to provide real time visualization of ground operations and resources; predicts and forecasts resource utilization and choke points that may result in longer waiting times; and coordinates patient and supplies flows to optimize care for patients.
The first phase of C3 will start with streaming data from various operational systems and it will move on to use advanced analytics to generate actionable insights and provide situational sensing so that the hospital can better pre-empt and act in advance of situations before they occur. The C3 System is set to go live progressively from third quarter 2019 to support daily operations, making TTSH the first Smart Hospital enabled by C3. The continuing development of the C3 System aims to enable real-time coordination with upstream pre-hospital care (e.g. ambulances) and downstream community partners (e.g. Community Hospitals) in Singapore’s Regional Health System. There are plans to gradually extend the C3 System to other public hospitals.
CHI will host an open knowledge repository of healthcare best practices, project reports and learning experiences. This portal will go live by end of 2019, featuring as a start some 500 curated innovation projects from different healthcare institutions and agencies. It is expected to be fully operational with all its features by mid-2020. .
(Source: Tan Tock Seng Hospital)
