Interoperability between the Capsule medical device information platform (MDIP) and PIC iX offers hospitals a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive patient overview. Philips aims to create an open patient monitoring ecosystem, bringing together disparate devices and systems on a single interface.
In early 2021, Philips acquired Capsule Technologies in a deal worth $635 million. This technology now helps to enable the interoperability the company is offering. Speaking to MassDevice at The MedTech Conference, Julia Strandberg, chief business leader of monitoring & connected care, explained what this open ecosystem offers.
“The intention is to have vendor-neutral data coming in, in real-time and waveform data,” Strandberg said. “There’s trending, alarm annunciation and learning that can happen. Then, we put it into a simple visual cueing such that a central station can look at it, a remote command center can look at it or nursing staff on an individual basis can look at it. That’s the new innovation that’s coming in.”
The company said in a news release that the interoperability provides clinicians with new clinical perspectives. It enables the capture of streaming data freely from a variety of medical device manufacturers on an open, scalable, secure platform. Information dissemination through PIC iX gives them a single-source, comprehensive patient condition overview. It aims to empower caregivers to make assured treatment recommendations from anywhere in a hospital’s digital environment.
“We believe that the innovation that we’re bringing to market and the variety of different formats creates a simple, convenient way of providing the three things that are the most important: clinical benefit and outcomes, financial benefit for the hospital and cost-effectiveness,” Strandberg said.
Philips seeks to break down patient barriers
According to the company, this new venture addresses the technical obstacles associated with interoperability. These include device-specific connectivity protocols and security challenges across the organization. It helps caregivers view, document, report and analyze data before making care-related decisions.
“Every day, clinicians make countless care decisions based on information from divided medical devices and systems. It’s time we start caring for the carers by making data more accessible,” Christoph Pedain, GM, hospital patient monitoring at Philips, said in the news release. “By ever-improving availability and accessibility of patient information, clinicians and patients benefit through enhanced workflows, insights, improved care delivery and safety measures that may lead to better health outcomes and the better use of staff and infrastructure.”
Philips now enables the pulling of data from non-Philips devices, like ventilators, infusion pumps and third-party vital signs monitors. Its technology presents and distributes the information in a single, standard interface to give clinicians a comprehensive picture. Access to this level of detailed information could minimize the time clinicians spend prioritizing data from multiple sources.
Ultimately, Philips said, it may allow caregivers to spend more time providing direct patient care.
Interoperability marks another step in Philips’ efforts to create a large, open patient monitoring ecosystem. The company wants its unique vendor-to-vendor interoperability to improve access to and availability of critical patient information.
“We wish that every device in the hospital was Philips’,” Strandberg explained. “It’s not. To be innovative in the service of caregiving, you have to think about your ecosystem. That’s one of the things that I want to bring forward. We think an open ecosystem is actually the way to get to a connected system. That’s partnerships that you see across the board.”
Providing for customers
Strandberg only joined Philips in April of this year but has already established a major area of focus.
“Even though I haven’t been with Philips very long, my focus has been on the customer and making sure I understand their voice,” she said. “What they’re really asking for is convenience, high integrity in decision-making and an optimal workflow. I constantly hear feedback that it’s about making sure you’re connecting dots, communicating when you need it.”
Strandberg said the company launched a business model within the last few years for monitoring as a service. Its intention was to move into service software and solution-tied financial framework to partner effectively with the financial needs of hospitals.
That move came as a result of listening to customers, taking on more responsibility for uptime and maintenance and upgrading and updating its own monitoring systems. On the clinical side, she said Philips enabled the interoperability for its Capsule technology. On the business side, the company looks at creating value at the health administration level.
“It’s also not only thinking about our customers in the clinical context and what their needs are but in the financial context,” Strandberg said. “We’re trying to marry both ends.”
