Philips doubles down on AI to offer better care for more people

SINGAPORE — Philips on Wednesday unveiled a new artificial intelligence-backed patient monitoring innovation strategy, underlining its commitment to help hospitals improve health care coordination to offer better care for more people and more effectively cope with projected workforce shortages worldwide.

“We need to start with where the pain sits in health care,” Stephanie Sievers, managing director of Philips Asia Pacific, told reporters on the sidelines of the company’s Innovation Summit in Singapore.

“Seventy-six percent of health care professionals say that they lose valuable time trying to connect the data and if you translate that into days, that’s 23 days that are lost per year. ... Our new strategy is to address these data challenges and to have an open, scalable end-to-end system where you support and improve clinical workflows.”

To this end, Philips showcased three patient monitoring systems — the Enterprise Command and Care Coordination Center, mobile-enabled monitoring solutions and patient avatars — to the participants of the event.

Philips highlighted how the Enterprise Command and Care Coordination Center enables more informed clinical decisions as its wireless heart monitoring offers real-time insights into heart activities and vital signs while its AI-based algorithm identifies patterns and flags early signs of irregularities such as arrhythmias and cardiac events.

The company said the system’s integrated virtual nursing workflows, including camera-enabled admission, discharge and observation, can reduce the burden on bedside staff while maintaining consistent oversight, noting that third-party remote monitoring technologies and wearables can be integrated into the central system to extend monitoring into outpatient and post-discharge settings.

According to Philips, its mobile-enabled monitoring tools provide secure access to patient information anywhere by bringing key data into a single view such as a smartphone or a tablet PC to support faster decisions and better coordination.

The company underscored that its gingerbread man-looking patient avatar displays complex data into simplified, clear images to support medical staff quickly assess the status of a patient.

“At its heart, innovation in patient monitoring is about supporting clinicians and improving outcomes for every patient,” said Sharad Jhingan, head of hospital and ambulatory monitoring at Philips Asia Pacific. “Our innovation and strong partnerships help health systems shape a future where patient monitoring is more predictive, connected and continuous, enabling clinicians to deliver better care for more people.”

Philips’ efforts to back up burdened health care professionals come as the world is on pace to face a lack of doctors and nurses in the near future. According to the World Health Organization’s projection, the global community is expected to deal with a shortage of over 11 million health care workers by 2030 with Southeast Asia accounting for about 25 percent.

Aurel Qian, a member of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s Asia-Pacific advisory board, stressed how patient monitoring is no longer about just watching numbers on a screen.

“Health care is shifting toward a more connected, real-time understanding of each patient, giving clinicians information they can quickly interpret and trust,” she said. “This helps care teams spend less time navigating systems and more time focusing on patients.”

According to Philips, hospitals working with it have reported up to a 40 percent reduction in non-actionable intensive care unit, or ICU, alarms, a 69 percent reduction in ICU hours and up to an 86 percent reduction in cardiac arrests.

“We partner with hospitals to enable care teams to act earlier and respond effectively at scale,” said Sievers, “Through strong local and regional collaboration, we deliver solutions designed around real-world clinical needs, helping ensure care is delivered when it matters most.”