Aging in Place: Designing health care for Singapore’s Pioneer Generation
We are getting older — everyone, all of us — and no one is immune from this condition. Did you know that in Singapore the senior population above 65 years old will grow to more than 900,000 by 2030? In preparation, Singapore’s prime minister recently announced long-term plans to care for this specific senior population, coined the “Pioneer Generation.” Are we ready for this “Pioneer Generation” and the implications to the health care system? Most existing facilities are unable to meet this increased demand. As architects and planners, we need to rethink our approach to the design of health care facilities and access to care. We all want to continue living the lifestyles we have built and stay in our homes and in our communities; we all want to age in place.
There is more access to care and better care now than ever before. Therefore, we will be living longer and healthier lives. We are going to need more available facilities and different kinds of facilities to deliver this care — more ambulatory and rehabilitation-based centers, more clinics in the community, more retirement villages that facilitate aging in place and more facilities that address the rise of medical tourism.
The current aging population is quite a different consumer of care than their parents were. We are more informed on the availability of care and more information is available — literally, at our fingertips on our smartphones. Access to our caregivers is also possible through technology and this is a trend that is only growing as more technology is developed to make access to care more efficient and seamless. There is complementary medicine and alternative therapies. We are already living longer and with complex comorbidities. This means that you may possibly be a cancer patient or survivor with a continued care program or maintenance and observation, and you may also be having rehabilitation for a hip or knee replacement. You may need to access various types of care in a single day.
An integrated care model ensuring seamless and efficient delivery of health care services is a key concept when planning for new facilities. AECOM and DP Architects are working together to plan the new Sengkang General and Community Hospitals to achieve exactly that, integrated and comprehensive care. Serving the residents of the northeast, it is an acute hospital with a community hospital and specialist outpatient clinics. A new campus of continuous care, ready to meet the demands of the aging population, it is designed to meet the Building and Construction Authority’s Universal Design guidelines with a focus on age-friendly design features both inside and out.
We carefully thought through the patient journey through each phase of our design and planning work to be ready to evolve the design as we learn more about the demographic as it evolves. A great example of this is that we not only considered current access for wheelchairs and mobility devices, which are in high use today, but we are also studying future implications to today’s design when more and more people will access the facility in motorized devices. We want to address these factors in advance and have a plan in place to let the facility age in place as well.
Kerry Clifford (Kerry.Clifford@aecom.com) is vice president, health care, design and planning, at AECOM for South and Southeast Asia. She understands the complex organizational issues facing large-scale health care institutions and has extensive experience designing facilities that answer patient and staff needs. Her work has been highlighted in Healthcare Design Magazine, World Health Design journal, Hospitality Design magazine and Going Places Singapore blog.
Twitter: @Kerryclifford
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