New skill sets are required to address social factors, assoc Prof Lee said at the inaugural Asia Pacific Social Prescribing Conference.
SingHealth introduced wellbeing coordinators, who are non-clinical staff who are embedded in clinical teams to identify and support patients facing social risk factors that may affect their health outcomes.
Nearly 1,000 patients have been benefitted by the social prescribing programme.
The SingHealth Community Hospitals Office of Learning is a new arm that will train 600 health and community care workers a year.
The educational programme it created with Ngee Ann Polytechnic will boost social prescribing efforts, for example.
The Health and Social Care Coordinator course, which is open to people from different walks of life, equips students with skills and knowledge to support social prescribing and work in multi-disciplinary teams of social and healthcare professionals.
One of the course attendees is Ms Caral Goh, who is now a part-time patient activity coordinator at Sengkang Community Hospital.
She said that before that, the former editor of a meditation and health magazine thought engaging with patients seemed like a pastime. After attending the course, she learned the purpose of such activities under the concept of social prescribing.
I learned to actively listen to patients so that we can find out their social determinants of health. She said that this will take a lot of trust.
SingHealth will also involve family physicians in upcoming workshops on the topic.
It was introduced this year into Duke-NUS Medical School's curriculum.
Minister-in-charge of Social Services Integration Desmond Lee said that as Singapore shifts towards preventive health and social factors that are sometimes not easy to put our arms around have to be addressed, as a result of the conference organised by SingHealth and SingHealth Community Hospitals.
He noted that individuals and families that have the most complex needs often face interlocking challenges that involve various issues, including social, health, and family fronts.