Philips has unveiled a new "connected digital health prototype" that's designed to help type 1 diabetics manage their health and connect with caregivers.
The platform pulls in a number of high-profile partners, including Salesforce – which recently introduced its App Cloud platform – and Radboud University Medical Center (Radboudumc) in the Netherlands, one of Europe's premier digital health providers. Officials say the system will include a prototype mobile patient app and online community enabled by Philips' new HealthSuite digital platform.
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Thibaut Sevestre, senior director for Philips' Eco-System Management, tells mHealth News the platform is a "collaboration space" for type 1 diabetics and healthcare providers, allowing access to data from electronic medical records and mobile devices, including blood glucose monitors and health and fitness monitors, as well as patient-entered data. Through a tablet, smartphone or other device, the user can access health data, receive health advice and alerts and communicate in real time with clinicians and other caregivers.
"There's a lot of work out there already being done," Sevestre said, pointing to the 1,000-plus apps now on the market for diabetics, "but there seems to be a barrier between automation and management. Too many type 1 diabetics either have a fear of the future related to their disease, or they're suffering from diabetes burnout … because they don't have the right balance of features and interaction."
"We want to explore how we can project their data, their information managed by themselves, into a collaboration space that gives clinicians access to their world," he added.
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Philips is using some of the elements of Salesforce's recently released Health Cloud, and adhering to the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards being developed by Health Level Seven to ensure that the data captured and housed on the platform can be used across different applications.
Sevestre said officials have spent the better part of a year trying to create a repository for a wide range of fragmented medical information, then link that to social media capabilities that give users and clinicians a place to collaborate. "We literally received a lecture on diabetes," he said, from healthcare providers who have long complained that there's a distinct gap between what the diabetic wants from this data and what the provider needs to do with the data.
The ecosystem is the first to use Philips' HealthSuite digital platform and CareCatalyst tools, and marks a shift in the company's healthcare offerings to create platforms to address personal health solutions. At the recent IFA electronics trade show in Berlin, Philips executives replaced the usual lighting and LED components – two business units that the Dutch-based company is shedding – with an assortment of medical devices, including a smartwatch, wrist-borne blood pressure monitor and smart scales.
"We are in a unique position to use our experience from our professional healthcare business for our personal healthcare business," Pieter Nota, the head of Philips' Personal Health business unit, told Reuters following the IFA show. "Data and data-related services will increase significantly. Step by step we will develop from a company offering products into a company that offers products and services."
And that begins with a platform tailored specifically for type 1 diabetics. While it's debuting in Europe, some of the platform will be available to the American market, and the company plans to expand its platform to other chronic conditions.
"Our system allows sharing of data and experiences in one community, where they can collaborate with fellow patients and their care teams in a secure environment," Jeroen Tas, CEO of the Healthcare Informatics Solutions and Services business at Philips, said in a press release. "There is a growing need for solutions that enhance self-management and continuity of care for those with chronic conditions such as diabetes to reduce health deterioration, re-admissions and mortality rates. This system has been designed by patients for patients and is enabling fully integrated health management and care delivery in a new, connected, efficient and highly patient-centric way."
"We want to encourage and support people to take full command of their disease by providing them with the right decision tools. This fits in our mission towards patient-centered participatory healthcare at Radboudumc," Cees Tack, professor in internal medicine at Radboudumc, said in the release.
"Empowering patients to be true partners in their own healthcare by giving them access to their data and by facilitating collaboration is the key to driving change across populations," added Lucien Engelen, director of the REshape Center at Radboudumc. "By collaborating with Philips, we're creating the digital framework necessary to make data actionable and transform how patients engage with their caregivers and social community."
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