Acute medicine at the hospital front door: A Singapore health system priority

Abstract

Hospital crowding in Singapore is often experienced at the emergency department front door, but for many older and medically complex adults, it may signal vulnerabilities across the early acute care pathway. Delayed senior decision-making, fragmented handover between emergency and inpatient teams, limited alternatives to admission, and weak transitions back to community care create risks to safety, patient experience, and bed capacity. Acute medicine offers a practical way to redesign this interval by concentrating diagnostic breadth, senior review, rapid diagnostics, multidisciplinary assessment, and disposition planning during the first 48–72 hours of undifferentiated acute medical illness. This commentary argues that the policy value of acute medicine in Singapore lies not in replicating a UK specialty model but in defining how its core functions can complement existing medical and emergency care pathways. It examines progress in Singapore, distinguishes acute medicine from adjacent models of care, and identifies the workforce, governance, and measurement requirements for further development.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Annals of the Academy of Medicine Singapore, 2026 · DOI ↗