How Philips is using surveillance technology to help close care access gaps
As the U.S. healthcare industry continues to face workforce shortages and access gaps, Philips is looking beyond its traditional medical technology roots. The company not only sells monitoring devices but also uses them directly to help health systems provide diagnostic services in places where experts are few.
At its core, Philips is as much a medical technology manufacturer as it is a healthcare provider, Nick Wilson, vice president of products at Philips, explained in an interview last week at the Reuters U.S. Medtech Conference in Boston.
He pointed out that this model can help solve the problem of labor shortage. For example, many areas have a shortage of cardiologists, and Philips partners with providers like Optum so that primary care doctors can order cardiac monitoring. Philips handles all technical diagnosis, with cardiologists stepping in only when clinical interpretation is needed — a process Wilson says helps reduce diagnostic delays.
He noted that Philips’ monitoring solutions are designed to track patients throughout their care journey—from home to hospital and back again.
For example, when patients come to the emergency room with dizziness, a symptom often associated with arrhythmias, providers can now send them home using connected monitoring devices instead of keeping them under observation for two days.
If a patient is admitted to the hospital, the Philips technology allows for continuous monitoring during the patient's stay, even in specialized areas such as the cath lab, without the need to change equipment, Wilson said.
He added that Philips could also help hospitals discharge patients faster by enabling safe home monitoring.
Wilson said Philips is working with health systems and other provider organizations to reduce operational challenges and upfront capital costs. The company offers “monitoring as a service,” allowing health systems to use the same monitoring platform across departments.
Wilson explained that in addition to improving interoperability, this approach often reduces equipment costs and staff workload. He said the model saved one client “about 13,000 work hours” in a year.
“They can take the same device, the same licensing subscription, and move it across the patient's entire continuum of care. We strongly believe that policy, coverage and workflow all have to come together to truly unlock the potential of all the data we generate across the health system,” Wilson said.
As Philips continues to develop its connected care ecosystem, the company is focusing product design on ease of use and the ability for around-the-clock monitoring.
Wilson said the devices should be built with simple self-application and continuous wear in mind.
He noted that approximately 30 percent of Philips Diagnostics patients receive their devices by mail without clinician assistance, so the kits include clear tools to help patients properly apply the sensors. That way, Wilson noted, the data is accurate and reliable. Philips also proactively contacts patients to ensure activation and signal quality, he added.
In a hospital setting, preventing interruptions in data collection is critical. Wilson said one way Philips is solving this problem is to design waterproof telemetry devices that do not require disassembly, thereby reducing the risk of missing cardiac events.
“Today, with most telemetry devices, when the patient is being monitored, they have to take it off to take a shower. We know that's often when a sensing event occurs because you create this black space in the longitudinal monitoring recording,” he said.
Wilson said as Philips continues to build its monitoring portfolio, the goal is to keep patients safer, help address care access gaps and ensure important cardiac data is never missed.
Photo: Pijitra Phomkham, Getty Images
