NURSING
MANAGEMENT IN SINGAPORE
Lee Y. L
KK Women's and Children's Hospital,
Singapore
Nursing management in Singapore is
still practising the “Traditional Centralised Nursing Service” where the
Director of Nursing manages the whole Nursing Service with the assistance
of first-line managers.
e.g. nurse managers in-charge of
wards/departments and middle managers in-charge of a unit make-up of
several wards/departments.
Other staff positions that make-up the
nursing service team are nurse-clinicians, clinical nurse specialists,
nurse-educators and speciality-nurse resource staff.
With the recent introduction of DRG
(Diagnostic Related Group) to Singapore Health Care System, we see the
development of case-managers who are primarily professional nurses.
In some hospitals this group of nurses
comes under Nursing Department Proposal for decentralising Nursing
Management are being tested.
The ever-fast turnover of contract
professional nurses makes induction programmes critical. There is also a need for in-house
programmes to train nurses for expanded roles.
With the fast changing environment in
Singapore’s Health Care Delivery the Director of Nursing will find Nursing
Management a very challenging one.