From research to reality
HOPES — the Health Outcomes through Positive Engagement and Self-Empowerment — started as a collaboration between the MOH Office for Healthcare Transformation (MOHT) and clinical partners to explore how digital phenotyping could passively and ethically capture mental wellbeing signals in real life.
What started as a research study evolved into a platform: one that could not only capture data but deliver meaningful, actionable insights back to users — and eventually, to clinicians supporting them.
Today, HOPES is a growing ecosystem of digital phenotyping programmes across Singapore's healthcare system, powered by a common infrastructure layer (VitaOS) that enables new research and care applications to be built on top.
Milestones
Our journey so far
Programme inception
HOPES launched as a digital phenotyping research programme under MOHT, partnering with National Healthcare Group (now NHG Health) and Institute of Mental Health (IMH) to study mental health signals in everyday life.
First paper published
Initial research findings from the HOPES study published in peer-reviewed journals, establishing the foundation for digital phenotyping in mental health in Singapore.
Clinical expansion
HOPES Care launched — a clinician-facing dashboard (ClinDash) enabling care teams to monitor patient wellbeing trends alongside clinical notes.
VitaOS & platform strategy
HOPES VitaOS introduced as the backend infrastructure layer — enabling partners such as National Neuroscience Institute (NNI), Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Nanyang Technological University (NTU)and more to build on top of the HOPES digital phenotyping stack.
First public release
HOPES app launched on the App Store and Google Play, providing mood logging and journalling for IMH patients and anyone looking for digital mental health support.
Expansion & wearable integration
Wearable sync (Bring Your Own Device) and sleep support features in active development, alongside new programme partnerships across Singapore's healthcare system.
Active programmes
Three programmes, one platform
HOPES Care
A clinical-grade extension of HOPES that connects patients with their care teams. Through ClinDash, clinicians are provided with a longitudinal view of patient wellbeing between appointments, alerts for significant changes in mood or behaviour, and AI-enabled digital phenotyping summarisation.
Brightline
A six-month prospective observational study at NTU monitoring 500 university students through digital phenotyping. It aims to identify digital biomarkers associated with mental health conditions, including anxiety, stress, loneliness, and depression.
NeuroSenSing
A highly collaborative neurosensing research effort between MOHT, SUTD, and NNI focusing on digital phenotyping, wearable technology, and neurodegenerative disease management. Key research initiatives combine medical expertise with engineering and AI to monitor cognitive health, particularly in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Research
Published work
HOPES: An Integrative Digital Phenotyping Platform for Data Collection, Monitoring, and Machine Learning
J Med Internet Res. · 2021
Read paper →Evaluating the utility of digital phenotyping to predict health outcomes in schizophrenia: protocol for the HOPE-S observational study
BMJ Open · 2021
Read paper →Harnessing digital phenotyping to advance university student mental health (Brightline) in Singapore: study protocol for a prospective observational study
BJM Open · 2025
Read paper →