• SingHealth and SUTD will work together on a novel 'Community Ageing in Place Ecosystem' initiative to be implemented in the eastern region of Singapore.
• About 1,000 residents from selected areas in Bedok South and Marine Terrace will benefit from this initiative over the next three years.

 
16 January 2024, Singapore – To encourage and empower residents living in the eastern region of Singapore to get well, live well and keep well, SingHealth and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) signed a Collaboration Agreement to deepen their partnership in three key domains: Healthcare Living Labs, Vibrant Community and Population and Preventive Health. The "Community Ageing in Place Ecosystem" (CAPE) is a key project to advance population and preventive health under this partnership. It is a novel initiative that seeks to create and study environments that support different aspects of seniors' health and wellness so that they continue to age actively and remain engaged in the community. Mr Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies, witnessed the inking of the Collaboration Agreement today at a signing ceremony held at Changi General Hospital.

Creating the Community Ageing in Place Ecosystem

This strategic partnership brings together the clinical and academic research, innovation efforts and education capabilities of SingHealth and SUTD to drive transformation in care delivery and improvements in health outcomes. As part of the Collaboration Agreement, both organisations will work together to look into strategies that will foster healthier communities, in alignment with the national Healthier SG initiative. SingHealth is the public healthcare cluster that takes care of the health needs in the eastern region of Singapore, and with SUTD strategically located in Upper Changi, both organisations are well positioned to enable holistic and impactful changes to the communities here.

One key project that will be implemented is CAPE, which aims to empower and enable seniors to go about their everyday activities in their own communities while minimising or mitigating episodes of illness and hospitalisation. It will focus on three key pillars: social and health care interventions, built environment modifications and the strategic implementation of technology, to provide tailored interventions that will enable seniors to live and age actively.  

For a start, CAPE will pilot its initiatives in specific residential neighbourhoods in the eastern part of Singapore such as Bedok South and Marine Terrace, benefitting about 1,000 residents. For example, SingHealth community nurses and Wellbeing Coordinators will form Healthier SG teams that are embedded within Active Ageing Centres to co-develop and implement exercise, nutrition, cognition, preventive health and chronic disease management programmes, personalised to each senior's frailty status. To increase community engagement for seniors, programmes that improve inter-generational bonding, civic participation and volunteerism in their neighbourhoods will be scaled up. Supported by the SingHealth Healthy, Empowered and Active Living (HEAL) Fund, baseline assessments for this trial started in November last year, and the trial is expected to conclude in 2026.

A suite of interventions for the robust, frail and severely frail groups of seniors will also be put in place. These include enhancing the environment in which they live and interact, such as modifications to physical infrastructure and facilities in the home and community, and working with partners such as Active Ageing Centres to integrate and strengthen social connections and infrastructure capabilities. These measures are specially designed to enable them to live independently and enjoy their everyday activities safely in the familiar comfort of their own communities. The goal is for seniors who live in these CAPE sites to demonstrate reduced healthcare utilisation, delayed progression of frailty and improved quality of life.

Over the next three years, SingHealth and SUTD will jointly evaluate CAPE's effectiveness, assessing how social, built environment, behavioural factors, and functional ability influence life and health outcomes. They will also evaluate key operational considerations, including factors that prevent or encourage access to health and social care services to ascertain its scalability to other neighbourhoods. CAPE's findings can potentially guide considerations in urban planning, neighbourhood design and placemaking strategies to shape age-friendly precincts and healthy residences, as well as enhancing the efficacy of ongoing population and preventive health initiatives at a national level.

CAPE will eventually be scaled up to impact other neighbourhoods in Singapore, such as selected areas in Telok Blangah, Chinatown and Bukit Merah.

Improving Health Holistically through Urban Environmental Design – Pelatok Art Farm 
This year marks the 11^th year of partnership between SingHealth and SUTD, which first started between SingHealth's Changi General Hospital (CGH) and SUTD. One example of this successful collaboration, which is aligned to CAPE's objectives, is the Pelatok Art Farm, a joint project between CGH and SUTD, in partnership with Changi Simei Grassroots Organisations and SAA Architects. This initiative aims to improve the physical, mental and social well-being of residents through urban environmental design.

The Art Farm started in August 2021 and saw residents from Changi-Simei come together on a 12-week green social prescribing programme. The aim was for residents to ideate, design and build a community farm with their neighbours through art activities, wood-crafting, soil preparation and the use of recyclable materials. Participants actively engaged with nature while working together and bonding with like-minded residents over a shared interest. This enabled them to forge new friendships in the community, boost their social network and consequently, their social well-being. Participants reported a greater sense of community, connectedness to nature, and positivity due to the programme. They also reported improved mental well-being as many felt more restored, calmer, and had better clarity of thought.

Nurturing the Next Generation

On the education front, SingHealth and SUTD's partnership will augment the pipeline of talent in healthcare, engineering and technology. Students under the SUTD-Duke-NUS Special Track programme are mentored by SingHealth clinicians and provided unique clinical immersion opportunities, giving them first-hand experience in a healthcare setting through internships and job shadowing of the clinicians.

SUTD's adult learning arm SUTD Academy has also worked with SingHealth to co-develop the SingHealth SUTD Data Science (Healthcare) Programme, which is a Continuing Education & Training (CET) course that addresses the specific data science and analytics needs within Singapore's healthcare landscape. The course will start public intake in April 2024.
 
Professor Ivy Ng, Group CEO, SingHealth, said, "SingHealth is delighted to deepen our partnership with SUTD and translate our combined strengths in academic medicine, population health, design and technology into impactful solutions for the population and community we serve. Our decade-long partnership has had an excellent track record, and I am confident that this continued collaboration will play an important role in empowering residents in the east and beyond to lead more active and healthier lives."

Professor Chong Tow Chong, President, SUTD, said: "Today's signing between SUTD and SingHealth marks a significant milestone for us. The expansion of our strategic partnership will enable us to draw upon the collective expertise of both organisations to make deep and notable impacts on the healthcare of the communities in the Eastern region through research innovation and education. Together, we are also training the next generation of clinician innovators, equipping them with interdisciplinary and design thinking skills, which will enable them to create human-centred solutions that benefit the healthcare sector."