SINGAPORE – After an operation to mend a punctured lung, she found herself temporarily unable to speak, making communication so tiring during her recuperation that she would rather not try.

“I was so frustrated that I couldn’t talk and that they didn’t understand my gestures that I didn’t want to talk,” said the 19-year-old patient who only wanted to be known as Claire, relating her experience in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) as an intubated patient.

For these patients, a tube is passed through their throat and their vocal chords, making speech impossible and attempts at communication, distressing and frustrating.

To help patients in intensive care communicate with their family and nurses, Changi General Hospital (CGH) and Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS) have developed an iPad application, Patient Care Communicator.

CGH is believed to be the first local hospital to use iPads to communicate with ICU patients.

The application allows patients to tap, write or draw out their needs and questions, without having to nod or gesture at pictorial aids.

By tapping with their fingers, patients can point and even zoom into their area of pain on a full body diagram provided in the Pain Management Chart. They can then verify the level of pain using a pain scale slider beside the diagram.

Patients can select from seven categories of needs: Physical needs, Emotional needs, Personal Belongings, Environment Needs, Head, Body, and Upper and Lower Limbs. They can also express themselves using the sketch pad with a built-in keyboard. The application is available in four languages: English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

For now, the surgical and medical ICUs, which have 10 and 14 patients respectively, have one iPad each, said Nurse Manager June Tan, who added that more units may be brought in.

A survey conducted on 63 patients between June and September showed that 97 per cent of patients found the iPad effective in communicating with nurses, while 98 per cent of nurses surveyed found the iPad effective in communicating with patients.

The innovative project won a gold award at the CGH Quality Improvement Forum last month.

For patients like Claire, the iPad proved very helpful. “I was able to tell them my needs and type it out if the pictures were not enough,” she said. “I could converse with my family too.”