Tan Tock Seng Hospital celebrates 180 years as the ‘People’s Hospital’ of Singapore

This year, the TTSH Excellence Awards recognises 34 individuals (14 Gold & 20 Silver) from various professions in the hospital, along with one outstanding partner who receives the TTSH Partner Award.

​Staff Profile - Staff Excellence Awards (Gold)

Ms Heidi Tan, Senior Principal Occupational Therapist has made sterling contributions in the clinical, education and research domains. On the clinical front, she championed the development of work rehabilitation services for the injured nationally and facilitated their return-to-work (RTW). This initiative has significantly shaped the national workmen’s compensation policy. As educator in TTSH, NHG and Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), Heidi developed many impactful educational initiatives to develop skillsets of allied health professional to meet future healthcare needs. For instance, she was instrumental in the setup of SIT’s Health Sciences Continuing Professional Education (CPE) framework for the new undergraduate allied health programmes.

The Emeritus is an esteemed title bestowed to staff for their lifetime contributions to healthcare and who have impacted TTSH's legacy of care. They stand as role models and inspirations for the next generation. There are three Emeritus Consultants, and one Emeritus Fellow conferred this year.

Emeritus Fellow

Ms Lim Siew Geok, Assistant Director of Nursing, Nursing Service

Throughout her career at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) which spans over two decades, Ms Lim made significant contributions to TTSH's legacy of care. She upskilled nurses to perform intravitreal injection (IVT), a procedure traditionally performed by doctors. This has reduced the waiting time for patients to receive IVT injections and allowed for doctors to manage more complex cases. Ms Lim is an outstanding Nurse Educator Leader who elevated the Pedagogy of teaching not just in TTSH but across the Singapore community. This year, she was appointed the Adjunct Assistant Professor title by Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT). Besides her active professional life, Ms Lim makes time to volunteer, contributing to enhance the health of the population with Singapore Nurses Association.

Emeritus Consultants

Professor Philip Choo, Senior Consultant, Geriatric Medicine (Conferred in January 2024)

Prof Choo was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of TTSH from 2011 to 2014 and Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of NHG from 2015 to 2023. As one of Singapore's pioneering geriatricians with over 20 years of experience, Prof Choo has been a key driving force in the growth of geriatric capability in public health. His foresight led to the set-up of the largest geriatric facility in Singapore and the launch of the Centre for Geriatric Medicine at TTSH. During his tenure as GCEO, Prof Choo steered NHG to progressively shift from episodic illness care to the holistic management of the population in all dimensions of health – physical, psychosocial, and socio-economic – guided by the River of Live (ROL) framework, which he designed. Under his leadership, NHG made leaps in its digital transformation journey and further strengthened its research and education pillars.

Associate Professor Suresh Sahadevan, Senior Consultant, General Medicine

A/Prof Suresh is an all-rounded clinician who is well-respected in the Geriatric and General Medicine fraternities. His area of expertise in memory disorders and medical ethics and professionalism have placed him in the top rank of Geriatricians. He has mentored many outstanding clinicians who have made significant contributions to the specialty of Geriatric Medicine in TTSH.  A/Prof Suresh played a pioneering role in establishing the first non-psychiatric memory clinic and cognitive service under the Department of Geriatric Medicine. From 2004 to 2007, he was appointed Head of General Medicine where his dedication, experience and knowledge transformed General Medicine as a core and essential service at in the hospital and at the national level. To this day, he continues to contribute to clinical service in both General Medicine and Geriatric Medicine.

Adjunct Associate Professor Yeo Seng Beng, Senior Consultant, Otorhinolaryngology

Adj A/Prof Yeo is well recognised as the leading Otology and skull base specialist in the country. He is a recognised domain expert in his subspeciality nationally and internationally. For the past three decades, A/Prof Yeo is involved with mentoring and teaching ENT doctors and medical students. A/Prof Yeo has been integral to the training of the next generation of Otology and skull base specialists, passionately mentoring the younger generation of doctors not just within TTSH, from other hospitals too. He also developed the teaching curriculum for ENT nurses in collaboration with the Nanyang Polytechnic's School of Health Sciences.​​

The Tan Tock Seng Milestone Awards recognise the exceptional contributions of teams to the hospital's legacy of care. These teams have improved care to patients, through development, application or implementation of creative solutions and technology.

The Integrated Diabetes Mellitus Care Collaborative

The Integrated Diabetes Mellitus (DM) Care Collaborative led by the Department of Endocrinology, leverages on technology and interdisciplinary collaboration to enhance care for patients with diabetes. It is anchored by two initiatives, the Integrated Diabetes Care Programme (IDCP) and the Clinical Diabetes Educator (CDE) model. Both initiatives cross-train allied health professionals and nurses to manage diabetes patients as part of a whole Endocrinology team while still leveraging on their personal professional expertise. The role redesign especially for the CDE model reduces care fragmentation and allow patients to have better coordinated care with fewer diabetes clinic appointments and shorter waiting time. Using technology and database to identify and stratify all DM patients during ward admission, patients will have closer and more frequent monitoring for their DM care.

Specialised Unit for Acute Palliative Care

Established in 2013, the Specialised Unit for Acute Palliative Care is the first hospital-based palliative care unit in Singapore. The multidisciplinary team consists of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers, dieticians, and pharmacists. Facilitating direct admission for patients from home to the ward, the unit bypasses the emergency department allowing for faster intervention and shorter hospital stays. The 30-bed unit admits patients with high clinical complexity and delivers cross-specialty and multidisciplinary interventions that relieve distressing symptoms and gives comfort to patients nearing their end of lives.​

The Culture Transformation Award given in milestone years is in recognition of highly impactful and transformative initiatives that create a shared and sustainable vision for success. This could be in the area of staff culture, behaviour or efficient work process. The first award was given in 2019 to the Quality and Patient Safety Culture, in conjunction with TTSH's 175^th Founder's Day.

Total Workplace Safety & Health (TWSH)

In celebration of the hospital's 180^th Founding Year, the second Culture Transformation Award goes to the Total Workplace Safety & Health (TWSH) Council. TWSH is led by the Workplace Safety & Health Council and its four pillars - Workplace Safety Committee, Occupational Health Committee, Staff Wellbeing Committee and the Office for Protection of Employees, and the Department of Infection Prevention and Control. The TWSH Council focuses on having every member in TTSH to contribute positively to the hospital's safety and health culture, this includes partners, vendors, students and volunteers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a strong call to protect the hospital workforce's health, a team was set up to roll out COVID-19 containment initiatives. Leveraging the pandemic experience, the TWSH has made exemplary efforts to reduce and prevent injuries in the workplace, introduce impactful programmes that promote staff physical and mental well-being and support staff against abuse and harassment, making TTSH a safe place to work and for patients to heal.​