Success Stories

We applaud the many KKH teams who have created and deployed their innovations in the hospital and beyond. These inventions are delivering better patient care, cost-effectiveness and staff satisfaction on a daily basis.

(a) Spirobooth for Paediatric Respiratory Spirometry: A novel, self-contained, purpose-built booth to allow spirometry to be performed safely with strict infectious control requirements. Leading to no disruption to patient care during COVID and post-COVID.

(b) Virtual Reality for Medical Training in Neurosurgery, Women’s Anaesthesia, Orthopedics and Nursing.

(c) ICSIVRse: A Virtual Reality (VR) education tool that aims to shorten embryologist’s training duration to achieve competency in cognitive and psychomotor skills. Virtualization allows concurrent training of trainees, improving training outcomes and reducing use of biological materials.

(d) Augmented Reality (AR) for Cannulation Distraction: Rolled out in all KKH Paediatric Outpatient clinics and inpatient wards, patients can launch AR application on their mobile phones to complete the activities. This aims to help with paediatric patients’ anxiety and discomfort and to help caregivers prepare and calm child. Post launch results showed that the average time taken to complete procedure reduced from 14mins to 12mins, with 80% of patients reported to enjoy using the application. Staff found AR application engaging and felt that it helped to educate and support patients.

(e) 3D Printing for patient pre-operative preparation and patient education in paedetric Orthopedic, Dental, Plastics, Cardiology and Cranial reconstruction in KK. 3D models created are then printed out for surgical planning or to enhance patient education on the objective of surgery.

(f) Telehealth at KKH

Telehealth at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) connects patients with their Healthcare Professionals via digital means, enabling patients to receive convenient and accessible healthcare wherever they are.

Using a digital device, such as a computer or smartphone, patients with select conditions are able to have a private and comprehensive telemedicine consultation with their Healthcare Professional, without having to physically visit the hospital.

(g) Robotic Process Automation (RPA): Automation of data extraction, cleaning and reporting reduced time taken by a Principal Embryologist to generate a report, by 80%. RPA will be expanded hospital-wide to support clinical productivity.

(h) Enhancing Family-Centered Care in the KKH NICU: A virtual visitation tool that connects families beyond physical presence, Baby Viewer allows parents to visit their baby in the NICU virtually. User survey results showed good parental perception and experience with reduced anxiety in parents.

(i) uSINE: The world's first Artifical Intelligence-powered (AI) ultrasound guided automated spinal landmark identification, improving precision of needle insertion during obstetric anaesthesia.

(j) Artificial Intelligence drive interactive calculator chatbot for patients with IEM: Chatbot that records food intake, show your food diary and show nutritional value for food.

(k) KKH Urgent Paediatric Advice Line (UPAL) chatbot: KKH UPAL was launched in 2019, as a first-of-its-kind service in Singapore to impart reliable curated advuce for common paediatric conditions, as well as to serve as a first-line pre-hospital triage of acute medical conditions for right-siting of care. Additional enhancements to UPAL are underway, involving incoporation of Generative AI Intelligence (GenAI), outreach module via Whatsapp and integration with geographical information system tracker to direct caregivers to the nearest General Practitioner where necessary.

(i) KKH Edubot: KKH Edubot is an AI-enabled text messaging/chatbot interface that contains clinical pathways and guidelines developed by KKH in collaboration with various primary healthcare partners. It was launched to help General Practitioners develop acumen in recognition of red flags and soft signs in the spectrum conditions to better delineate the group of paediatric patients who will benefit from further evlaluation and escalation of management to a paediatric referral centre such as KKH.

(m) LUGE-It-Home: The Lightweight, User-friendly Gateway for Essentials Homecare Kit provides home care nurses with important components such as a drip stand for hanging of infusion fluids, compartments for material storage and desk space required for procedures.