Institution: Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Partner: KPR Singapore Pte Ltd
Scope of project: Falls associated with inappropriate footwear occur occasionally in the hospital. Several studies indicate that inappropriate footwear is a risk factor for falls especially among the elderly. With the growing greying population in Singapore, addressing footwear issues in this group is a major priority.
Status: Trial on inpatients has been completed, with satisfactory results. Product is available for purchase through internal procurement and is also sold through the retail pharmacy.
Institution: Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Partner: Conex Systems and Services Pte Ltd
Scope of project: Traditional optical detection methods for fall detection, known to be one of the best detection methods, is restricted by privacy concerns. Other existing detection systems are insufficiently accurate; examples are bed-sensor pads and motion detectors. The team developed a Fall Detection System using thermal sensing. The proposed system will enable motions of a patient to be captured and recorded through thermal imaging, which will enable the patient's position to be identified. A basic visualisation software will represent the status of the patient's position through different colours.
Status: About 12 units will be deployed in TTSH. The company intends to implement the system in other hospitals in Singapore and Thailand.
Institution: Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Partner: Forefront Additive Manufacturing Pte Ltd
Scope of project: TTSH Foot Care and Limb Design Centre (FLC) and Forefront Additive Manufacturing are working on new technology to transform the Hospital's Prosthetics & Orthotics (P&O) services. Due to the increasing demand from patients in Singapore, the team has to innovate to improve productivity. The team is also working on reducing the lead time to develop value-added P&O products to reduce the economic burden to the patient, their family and society. The first prototype for the ankle foot orthosis is undergoing laboratory fatigue testing. If the testing is satisfactory, P&O will introduce the orthosis to clinical use.
Status: The project was completed in Sept 2017. Currently, the 3D-printed ankle foot orthoses are available to patients if they so choose.
Institution: Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Partner: Health Food Matters Pte Ltd
Scope of project: Many patients suffer from difficulty in swallowing, also known as dysphagia. These patients have to consume thickened fluids so that they can swallow safely. Different patients require different fluid consistencies. Nurses and care-givers have to prepare these fluids for the patients every time they need to drink. This makes drinking fluids outside of home inconvenient. Currently in the market, there is a lack of pre-mixed beverage for dysphagic patients.
Status: The team has developed four drinks; Coffee, Barley, Milk Tea and Water Chestnut. We have received good feedback for the four drinks. The beverages will be ready for retail purchase by mid of 2019.
Institution: Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Partner: NDR Medical Technology Pte Ltd
Scope of project: There has been an increase in the incidence of kidney stones together with rising obesity rates in developed (America, Europe, Japan) and developing countries (India and China). Several studies have shown that morbidly obese individuals excrete more oxalate in their urine, predisposing them to kidney stones. The minimally invasive procedure of percutaneous access to the kidney (PAK) establishes a keyhole-size entrance to remove kidney stones. Percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) is currently one of the most complicated stone surgery techniques to master. The task of obtaining access manually by the surgeon requires substantial skill. Inaccurate placement of the needle can risk injuring the kidney and adjacent organs, compromising the procedure, as well as the clinical outcome of the patient. The team has developed a smart robotic-guided system to help surgeons speed up the process of accurately aligning the needle to the stone target embedded in the kidney. The device relieves the surgeon of the need to select an approach because it provides a robotic means to guide and stabilise the alignment of the needle with automated real-time correction to reach the target accurately. The purpose of the system is to shorten the training period, increase the accuracy, and reduce the risk of the surgery, thereby enabling more surgeons to perform PAK procedures.
Status: The robotic-guided system is in the final stage of clinical trial and will be available in Mar 2019.