President's Award for Nurses 2013

President's Award for Nurses 2013

Three exemplary nurses – one of whom is the youngest recipient ever – will receive the President’s Award for Nurses from President Tony Tan Keng Yam at the Nurses Day Istana Reception on 31 July 2013. Into its fourteenth year, the award is the national accolade for the nursing profession.

2.         Each year, healthcare institutions will nominate nurses for the prestigious award to recognise their significant contributions in nursing. A panel, comprising the Chairman of the Health Government Parliamentary Committee, the Chief Nursing Officer (Ministry of Health), and Board Members of public institutions will select three distinguished nurses from the nominees to receive the award.

3.     The three recipients are Ms Chua Gek Phin, 55 years old, Director of Nursing, National Cancer Centre Singapore; Ms Chia Lay Hoon, 55 years old, Deputy Director of Nursing, National University Hospital – ICU & National University Heart Centre Singapore and Ms Jasmine Kang Sin Ee, 34 years old, Advanced Practice Nurse (Gerontology), Tan Tock Seng Hospital. (Please refer to Annex for more information on the award winners).

4.         “Nursing is a calling that demands selflessness and devotion. The award recipients have made exemplary contributions towards patient safety, clinical excellence and research.  I hope they will inspire their fellow nurses to strive towards even greater heights in nursing,” said President Tony Tan.

5.         The award winners will each receive a trophy, a certificate and $6,000 which can be used to attend conferences and training programmes of their choice for professional and personal development.

Ministry of Health

29 July 2013

Annex

RECIPIENTS OF PRESIDENT’S AWARD FOR NURSES 2013

Chua Gek Phin (蔡玉屏)

Director, Nursing

National Cancer Centre Singapore

Gek Phin is a strong advocate of patient safety and instrumental in raising the standards and profile of Oncology Nursing in Singapore.

Under her leadership, NCC achieved 99.99% accuracy in medication administration in the Ambulatory Treatment Unit (ATU) through implementing initiatives such as staff training, staff empowerment, and the use of checklists and flowcharts to improve systems and work processes.  The ATU is a high risk area with 35,000 cases seen annually and more than 100 medications and protocols administered.

Gek Phin strongly believes in investing in staff training. She developed the NCCS Chemotherapy Course to equip nurses with knowledge and skills to work independently to manage patients undergoing chemotherapy, and to educate patients - especially outpatients - in self care.

Yet another major contribution was the development of a core group of Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) and Nurse Clinicians to support tumour specific clinics in NCCS. The APNs play an important role in assisting medical consultants at NCCS in giving relevant advice and assistance to patients when they come for follow-up visits.

In profiling Singapore’s oncology nursing internationally, Gek Phin was pivotal in bringing the 15^th International Nursing Conference on Cancer Nursing to Singapore for the first time in 2008. She is Advisor to the 3^rd Regional Oncology Nursing Conference Committee, the 1^st and 2^nd of which she chaired. She has also presented many papers on cancer research and cancer nursing locally and internationally.

Chia Lay Hoon (谢丽云)

Deputy Director of Nursing

National University Hospital

Lay Hoon’s focus on improving patients’ outcomes, optimising resources to improve workflows and building cohesive teams are testament to her efforts to take nursing to a higher level.

Lay Hoon values teamwork and instils in her team a sense of unity and purpose. She also builds strong relationships with other members of the healthcare team and works with them to advance clinical excellence and workforce capabilities. She innovatively improved staffing models for the Intensive Care and High Dependency Units, increased the capacity of the Cardiac Monitoring Unit and introduced the “discharge lounge” to minimise delays, eliminate cancellations and provide respite for  bed shortages. She synergised processes to reduce door to balloon time for percutaneous coronary interventions to a mean of 58 minutes, which betters the international benchmark of 90 minutes.

She is passionate about developing nursing leaders and Advanced Practice Nurses (APN) to make a positive impact on patient outcomes and the quality of ICU care. In collaboration with the medical team, she identified and developed 9 ICU APN in 5 years.

Jasmine Kang Sin Ee (江心仪)

Advanced Practice Nurse (Geriatrics)

Tan Tock Seng Hospital

Jasmine is the first Advanced Practice Nurse trained in Geriatrics in Singapore.

She helped establish the new model of Delirium Care in the Geriatric Monitoring Unit in TTSH, the first of its kind locally. Her strong gerontology skills lent to the set up of an essential Transitional Care Service for Post Acute Care at Home, allowing earlier discharge of frail elderly to the community. Jasmine currently leads the GeriCare Team which assesses acute-inpatients for post-acute care and discharge planning. 

Jasmine devised a new assessment audit tool and developed protocols to reduce falls.  She also initiated nursing assessment referrals and patient care records which are part of the current standard nursing documentation in TTSH.

She participates in research projects and has published articles and presented posters on delirium care at local and international platforms.

Jasmine is involved in national initiatives like the Geriatric Education and Research Institute (GERI) Committee, and the National Dementia Network Subgroup.

She participates in community building by imparting her professional expertise locally and on voluntary mission trips overseas.