SINGAPORE – The two public hospitals in Jurong will be harnessing precision medicine and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide their patients with more personalised care.
Patients receiving care at JurongHealth Campus hospitals – Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH) and Jurong Community Hospital (JCH) – will undergo a phenotyping process under the Jurong Ageing Resilience Project, which is to last for five years.
Functional phenotyping is a form of precision medicine, where the patient’s data, medical and psycho-social, is collected for analysis.
An AI algorithm, built and refined over the past decade using patient data from JurongHealth Campus hospitals, is then used to analyse and predict the patient’s risk of physical and cognitive frailty, or the risk of metabolic diseases like diabetes.
The hospitals can then follow up with personalised care to target the risk factors and reduce these risks.
For instance, patients identified to be at higher risk of physical frailty face higher risks of falls, and the frailty also contributes to poor metabolic outcomes.
Hence, patients can benefit from targeted interventions such as physiotherapist-led exercises that build up their muscle mass and retard sarcopenia, an age-related disease characterised by the progressive loss of muscle mass, strength and function.
The care team can also look into whether the patients face any psycho-social issues, which might affect nutrition.
Improvements in their cognitive health are also expected, with the eventual aim of reducing poor clinical outcomes such as re-admission to hospitals, and for them to have an overall better quality of life.
This preventive care approach differs from the current care approach.
If a patient is admitted for a hip fracture after a fall, the current approach is to treat the patient for the fracture. But the new approach ensures personalised care aimed at reducing future falls, which will benefit the patient directly in both health outcomes and healthcare costs.
The project is estimated to start from the second quarter of 2026, and will benefit around 1,000 patients over the next five years.
The majority will likely be seniors, given that 300,000 residents in the west will reach the age of 65 in the next five years.
The cost for patients receiving personalised interventions may be higher than that incurred in the current care model.
But this may not translate to higher costs for each patient, Associate Professor Dan Yock Young, the chief executive of NTFGH and JCH, told The Straits Times.
Personalised interventions in this ageing resilience project are meant to be cost-effective and aimed at reducing clinical outcomes such as readmissions, and could bring about cost savings, he added.
Patient-centric initiatives like this five-year project could be funded by the JurongHealth Fund (JHF), which was set up in 2011 to support programmes and initiatives that benefit needy patients, as well as staff at both JurongHealth hospitals.
The JHF raised $1.4 million through a fund-raising campaign that lasted eight months.
The NTFGH Benefit Dinner held at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore on Oct 16 marked the end of the campaign and celebrated the 10th anniversary of the two hospitals.
Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health Ong Ye Kung attended as guest of honour.
Health Minister Ong Ye Kung attended the dinner as guest of honour.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
With the funds raised, the JHF can continue to help needy patients afford essential treatments or devices such as hearing implants, medical and mobility equipment such as oxygen concentrators, and hospital conveyances.
Mr Chua Chwee Chua, 73, is one of the JHF beneficiaries.
He suffers from lung conditions, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchiectasis – a permanent condition in which parts of the airways have enlarged due to irreversible damage to the lungs – and tuberculosis, which had reactivated in March and for which he is undergoing treatment at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
His breathing difficulties are severe and he needs an oxygen concentrator, which pumps oxygen into his airways, even when he is asleep.
Having resigned from his gardener job in July, he could not afford the two concentrators, which cost more than $3,000, until he received support from the JHF and the Government’s Seniors’ Mobility and Enabling Fund.
He has been hospitalised in NTFGH four times in 2025 due to shortness of breath. Though he quit his decades-long smoking habit in July, he still requires the oxygen concentrators to breathe better.
“With the devices, I can at least be out for a few hours each day to interact with my friends, which is much more fulfilling than staying at home,” said Mr Chua.
Mr Chua Chwee Chua needs to use a portable oxygen concentrator whenever he heads outside. The portable concentrate, which weighs a few kg, was fully paid for thanks to the JurongHealth Fund.
PHOTO: NG TENG FONG GENERAL HOSPITAL
The two hospitals also tap the JHF for staff development and training, such as the Nursing Empowerment Programme introduced in 2024 to groom nursing leaders and encourage innovations to improve nursing care and teamwork.
For the previous financial year that ended on March 31, the JHF received more than $5.9 million through sources such as donations and investment income.
It spent more than $6.3 million, mainly in education programmes and
quality improvement projects
.
Over 3,000 patients, community partners and members of the public have benefited from programmes and initiatives backed by the JHF in the past financial year.
