PhysioBuddy

PhysioBuddy is an exercise prescription platform that allows physiotherapists to create personalised treatment plans quickly. By streamlining the process of creating exercise programs and replacing existing paper prescriptions with a more efficient and organised digital solution, it aims to improve physiotherapists' workflows while also enhancing the patient experience.

Problem Statement

Physiotherapy exercise prescription in public healthcare is inefficient, which negatively impacts patient care. Physiotherapists want to spend less time on admin and more time on patient care.

At Singapore General Hospital (SGH), physiotherapists rely on an Excel-based exercise bank, spending up to 30% of each session (5–10 minutes) just selecting and printing exercises.

Time constraints sometimes force physiotherapists to skip this process entirely—resorting to handwritten notes, patient-recorded videos, or verbal instructions.

Manual record-keeping is tedious and frequently neglected, causing physiotherapists to forget prescribed exercises.

Goals

1. Cut prescription time by 70%—from 10 minutes to 3 minutes.

2. Replace paper-based exercise prescriptions.

3. Provide patients with a digital platform to easily access and follow their prescribed exercises.

4. Give physiotherapists access to patient exercise history for better continuity of care.

Research

We engaged both physiotherapists and patients, and conducted market research. Our research shows the need for a streamlined solution to reduce administrative inefficiencies and improve patient care.

Understanding Physiotherapists' Pain Points

We interviewed 6 physiotherapists, starting with Singapore General Hospital (SGH), after they highlighted inefficiencies in their current processes during an OGP Learning Journey.

We identified that administrative overheads consume up to 50% of each session, spanning patient scheduling, data entry, and exercise prescription.

Many inefficiencies are tied to the hospital’s enterprise system, which is due for an overhaul in two years. To ensure immediate impact, we focused on optimising exercise prescription—a pain point that we could reasonably address within this one-month hackathon.

We expanded our research and spoke with physiotherapists across Changi General Hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Ng Teng Feng General Hospital, and Alexandra Hospital to understand their workflows and validate findings.

We also surveyed 16 physiotherapists to quantify their experience. Their top request: more time to discuss treatment plans with patients and less time on administration. While 75% believe patient education should be their primary focus, only 20% actually spend most of their time on it.

Capturing the Patient Experience

We interviewed 8 patients from diverse ages (22–88), backgrounds, and medical conditions to understand their struggles.

Many struggled to recall prescribed exercises or perform them correctly—particularly older patients.

Patients reported feeling demoralised when physiotherapists couldn’t recall their prescribed exercises and lacked motivation due to the absence of a structured plan to track progress.

Competitor Products

Based on our market research, there are a few solutions. They have the features to meet our needs, with the following downsides:

• Expensive, as most of them are on subscription basis for all 1,200 physiotherapists in the public healthcare sector.

• No support for local languages to cater for our multi-racial society.

• The data will be stored in a third-party platform, which may not be compliant with current hospital policies surrounding patient confidentiality.

Solution

PhysioBuddy is a web-based platform where physiotherapists can sign in via Singpass and access a catalogue of 800+ most commonly used exercises to prescribe for their patients. Physiotherapists can easily assemble the exercises and send it to patients for reference.

PhysioBuddy creates a more seamless experience for both physiotherapists and patients by prioritising the following:

Discoverability

Physiotherapists will be able to find the right exercises quickly using tags, filters, or search.

Personalisation

Exercise details and instructions can be tailored to match each patient's needs.

Accessibility

Patients can receive the exercises in their preferred language via email, SMS, or printed copy, ensuring clarity and ease of use.

Easy Tracking and Documentation

Physiotherapists can keep a copy of prescribed exercises by emailing themselves for future reference.

Efficiency

A seamless process that lets physiotherapists complete a plan in just 5 minutes.

User Feedback

Two weeks into the hackathon, we piloted our minimum viable product with physiotherapists at SGH and received positive feedback:

“The platform that you have built not only saves us valuable time and money but also delivers an exceptionally user-friendly experience. The platform is easy to navigate, for both the therapist and patient […] I’m quite certain this project will be able to upscale and benefit not just SGH Physios but AHPs nationwide.”
— Tang Wai Kuan, Senior Physiotherapist, Singapore General Hospital

"I had the opportunity to test out PhysioBuddy and I'm really impressed by the sleek design and user-friendliness. Features are intuitive and targeted, which helps save clinic session time. I especially love the features allowing for personalisation such as the exercise contents and sequencing."
— Douglas Koh, Physiotherapist, Singapore General Hospital

Next Steps

Our immediate and long-term plans include:

• Expanding PhysioBuddy's usage in Singapore General Hospital (SGH). To date (8th Feb 2025), PhysioBuddy has been launched in and used to prescribe take-home exercise prescriptions to more than 50 patients at Singapore General Hospital.

• Launching PhysioBuddy in Changi General Hospital (CGH) and to all public healthcare facilities in Singapore, ensuring widespread accessibility and adoption.

• Enhancing the patient experience with progress tracking, enabling users to self-report exercise completion and track key metrics such as pain levels, mobility improvements, and strength gains.

• Introducing multilingual support, especially for non-English-speaking elderly patients, to ensure inclusivity and ease of use.

• Reducing prescription time is just the beginning! — we hope to further reduce time spent on other manual administrative tasks physiotherapists still have to do today so they can spend more quality time with patients.

• Driving awareness and adoption — If you're reading this and know someone who could benefit or may be interested, contact us here! We need your help to spread the word and bring this solution to every physiotherapist and patient in Singapore!

Reach out to us

Explore our product here or connect with our team if you will like to use this in your clinic!

Meet the Team

Kevin Foong (Team Lead)

Alicia Chong | Jin Hui Tan | Ken Lee | Malcolm Ong | Siewyee Bay | Vicky Wang | Yumo Pan