Speech by Mr Gan Kim Yong, Minister for Health, at Institute of Mental Health (IMH) Nurses’ Day 2018 and 90th Anniversary, on 3 August 2018

Professor Philip Choo, Group Chief Executive Officer, National Healthcare Group (NHG)

Professor Chua Hong Choon, Chief Executive Officer, IMH

Associate Professor Daniel Fung, Chairman, Medical Board, IMH

Ms Samantha Ong, Chief Nurse, IMH

Nurses

Distinguished

Guests Ladies and Gentlemen

1. Introduction

2. Good morning to all of you. It gives me great pleasure to join you this morning to celebrate Nurses’ Day with all of you at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), and as we celebrate the 90th anniversary of the institute. The theme – “90 Years of Psychiatric Nursing: Nostalgia and Beyond” aptly marks this milestone event. It is a call not just to reminisce, but also to reflect on how psychiatric nursing in IMH has evolved over the years and to envision the future challenges and opportunities.

3. Nursing has always been the bedrock of healthcare. Since the early days of psychiatric care at the Woodbridge Hospital, nurses have played a pivotal role in caring for patients with mental conditions. 3. Nurses today continue to be at the forefront of care delivery, playing a key role in managing patients’ physical, mental and psychological needs, and their roles are expanding. I would like to share the ABCs of nurses’ roles in healthcare transformation.

   A – for being Anchors of patient care;
   B – for Building collaborative communities; and
   C – for Championing innovation and technology adoption.
   

4. 
   

   Anchoring Care in Hospitals and in Community

5. Anchoring care in the community. Nurses are at the heart of our healthcare system. They are the nodes that connect up multidisciplinary teams, families, communities and care agencies to ensure seamless, integrated and well-coordinated care for patients. They are also the critical contact points along a patient’s care journey.

6. Nurse Clinician Bisy Shabu is an example of someone who is an anchor of care. She is part of the multi-disciplinary team in the High Dependency Psychiatric Care Unit comprising doctors, nurses, a psychologist and a pharmacist. Bisy initiates discussions with other team members to chart out management plans for patients with complex needs, such as patients with behavioural issues in addition to their psychiatric conditions. Dedicated to providing better care for her patients every day, Bisy huddles with her teammates daily to share about their experiences and explore new ways to deliver better outcomes. I am happy to hear that Bisy’s patients and their caregivers have benefitted from her passion to serve, and have developed strong rapport with the team.

7. Besides anchoring care in hospitals, nurses are playing an important role in the community. A group of Community Psychiatric Nurses (CPNs) from the Community Mental Health Team based in IMH provides home-based psycho-social rehabilitation to our patients.

8. Nurse Clinician Salleh Mohamed, who is a CPN, works with various agencies and partners to care for patients in the community. One of his patients is a 57 year-old who was unemployed for the past 20 years. The patient suffers from frequent relapses and readmissions because of non-adherence to medication and poor insight into his own illness. Concerned about his frequent admissions, Salleh focused his efforts on helping the patient within the community. He managed to engage the patient, and build trust during home visits. He facilitated the patient’s rehabilitation and improved the level of functioning in the community. Salleh also referred the patient to the medical social worker who then liaised with the Social Service Office for financial assistance. The patient has had no re-admissions since. He takes his medications regularly and goes for his follow-ups. I am glad to hear that nurses like Salleh work actively to ensure that patients in the community receive holistic care and support.

9. 
   

   Building Collaborative Communities

10. As the largest group in our healthcare workforce, nurses are best placed, to build collaborative communities across various care settings, which can collectively share ideas and implement improvements to patient care and work processes.

11. 
    

    Nursing Shared Governance Model

12. IMH is moving towards a Nursing Shared Governance model where nurses work collaboratively with one another to review processes to improve patient care, clinical practices and outcomes. These ideas are ground-up initiatives, with 90% of the input coming from nurses who provide direct patient care. This shows that nurses are taking part in decision-making for nursing care. They are empowered and accountable for clinical practice.

13. One example of improved work processes is in safety rounding, where nurses conduct regular rounds in the wards and check for patient safety. In IMH, safety rounding has been implemented since 2015. However, the methods of documenting the safety indicators during safety rounding differed across the various wards. Under the Nursing Shared Governance Model, 17 nurses including senior staff nurses, nurse managers, nurse clinicians and an Advanced Practice Nurse worked together to develop a standardised safety rounding template for use in all wards. By refining the safety rounding process and standardising the safety indicators, the new template will help nurses to be more effective in anticipating patients’ upcoming needs, and recognise warning signs earlier for timely intervention.

14. I am glad to see that through this collaboration and shared decision making, the Nursing Shared Governance Model will help IMH strengthen the sense of partnership, and ownership among our nurses. I encourage IMH nurses to actively share your experience, so as to improve patient care and your work environment.

15. 
    

    Championing Innovation

16. The third aspect is in championing innovation. To help nurses focus on direct patient care, we have actively encouraged hospitals to improve productivity through workforce transformation, use of technology and innovative models of care. I am heartened to hear that IMH nurses are making strides in this effort.

17. 
    

    Nursing Informatics and Technology

18. Senior Nurse Manager Zhegang is one of the three IMH winners of the National Healthcare Group’s Young Achiever Award this year. As chairperson of the IMH nursing informatics team, he has led various nursing and hospital IT projects relating to electronic documentation and electronic meal orders. These have helped to reduce the non-core work of IMH nurses, so that they can focus more on direct patient care.

19. I understand that IMH has also embarked on several projects to streamline processes and ensure better continuity of care. One such example is Tele-Derm which integrates mental health and medical care for patients. By collaborating with the National Skin Centre (NSC) for dermatological services through TeleDerm, IMH’s trained nurses capture images of skin lesions and send these to NSC, so that the doctors there can review them remotely. TeleDerm has helped patients receive more timely care and reduce trips to NSC. It also reduces the need for nurses to spend time accompanying patients for the unnecessary off-site visits, and allows them to devote more attention on direct patient care.

20. 
    

    Closing

21.  As we move forward with healthcare transformation, nurses will continue to play an important role in anchoring care, building collaborative communities and championing innovation. All nurses, at every level, can make a difference in improving work processes and delivering better patient outcomes.

22. Let me congratulate IMH’s outstanding nurses: Assistant Nurse Clinician Hu Xiaomei, Nurse Clinician Anita Ng, Nurse Clinician Yin Hao, and Nurse Clinician Hou Yanli, as well as Advanced Practice Nurse Xu Changqing – who are this year’s Nurses’ Merit Award winners.

23. Lastly, let me thank each and every one of our IMH nurses for your contributions to mental healthcare, and for your devotion to this noble profession. Even as we look back on 90 glorious years, may we also look ahead to many more years of meaningful work. And I hope that you will continue to find satisfaction in touching the lives of patients and caregivers. I wish you all a very Happy Nurses’ Day!