The Singapore Family Physician

Back to issue Vol 3 No. 37 - Integrated Eldercare Course

Delivery of Integrated Care

Ng Joo Ming Matthew
The Singapore Family Physician Vol 3 No 37 - Integrated Eldercare Course
8 - 13
1 July 2011
0377-5305
Health Care in Singapore is has been generally focus on acute care, that is the treatment of episodes of illness or injury for a short period of time. However many people, especially the elderly have chronic health issues; problems that are long term and continuing. They may have more than one chronic condition and may need a variety of health and social services to help them live well. In many cases proper support can allow those with chronic health issues to live in their own homes rather than an in an institution as well as avoid unnecessary hospital services. But for care to be match well to individual circumstances, a range of services may need to be coordinated or even depending on complexities of the need, “integrated” by pooling resources from multiple system or organization. There are many models of integrated care in the world and across Singapore restructured hospitals. However no single element of integrated models of care has been shown to be effective in and of itself. At a minimum all successful programs of integrated care use multidisciplinary care/case managers for those at risk of poor outcomes supported by assess to a range of health and social services. Decisions tools, common assessment and care planning instruments and integrated data systems are commonly listed infrastructure support for integrated care.