POCI
Professional Oral Care Intervention (POCI) is the provision of oral care by trained professionals onto patients, usually who are highly dependent or whose caregivers are not able to provide such daily care due to a mix of reasons.
Watch one of our oral care providers, Ms Nur Adilah, presenting in the scientific competition in the Malaysia International Dental Exhibition and Conference 2023 at Kuala Lumpur (5 Aug 2023).
For APA citation: Mohamad Noor NAB, Subramaniam J, Toh E, Tan HS, Lim GXD. Professional Oral Care Intervention in Nursing Homes - An Audit of a Community-Based Pilot Programme for Pneumonia Prevention in Singapore. Paper presented at: MIDEC; 5 Aug 2023; Malaysia Kuala Lumpur.
POCI End Report V1.2p.pdfPOCI is also the project name, for six month long, kindly supported by the National Youth Council under the Youth Action Challenge Season 3. See us pitch on youtube!
We have since completed our project. We had 3 to 4 oral care providers providing for Lee Ah Mooi NH and St Andrew NH Taman Jurong, from September 2022 till May 2023. POCI is provided to the frail residents who are at risk of pneumonia and other medical issues. POCI includes:
Toothbrushing
Sponge swab and cleanse soft tissues
Interdental cleaning
Moisturise or apply medications on soft tissues
Cleaning of denture (if there is)
Oro facial massage
Oro facial exercises
Each oral care provider provides for the same 14 patients each week. A recruitment drive, and on-job training were provided.
The POCI project utilises the BuurtZorg model, emphasising self-management by the OCPs. Therefore, the work has extreme autonomy and flexibility. For example, Xue Shi selects Tuesday as her POCI day. If she is busy on a particular Tuesday, she can arrange with the nursing home to come on Monday or Wednesday (or Monday PM and Wednesday AM), as long as the allocated residents are covered. She may also ask David to cover her if she plans to take leave. There is a lot of onus on this work. You are responsible for your patients!
