Dive Brief:
- Philips said Thursday it has partnered with six companies to expand wearable and out-of-hospital monitoring capabilities.
- The agreements position Philips to integrate products from Blue Spark Technologies, Caretaker Medical, Cuviva, LifeSignals, Respiree and smartQare into its offering.
- Philips’ deals come weeks after an American Medical Association survey found physicians’ use of wearable data is limited by barriers to integrating the information into clinical workflows.
Dive Insight:
The alliances expand the continuous patient measurements that can be integrated into Philips’ systems. Sangdo Kim, category leader of NextGen Acute and Transitional Care Monitoring at Philips, framed the collaborations as a way to help clinicians oversee their patients across care settings.
Blue Spark has integrated its wearable disposable patch, TempTraq, for continuous core body temperature monitoring into Philips’ system. TempTraq is designed to enable early detection of fevers.
Caretaker’s contribution is VitalStream, a wrist-worn wearable supporting continuous non-invasive blood pressure and advanced hemodynamic monitoring.
Philips is working with multiple providers of technologies that monitor vital signs. LifeSignals’, Respiree’s and smartQare’s devices track vital signs such as pulse and blood oxygen. The capabilities of LifeSignals’ device include two-channel ECG, while Respiree’s offering has patented technology for direct respiratory rate monitoring.
Cuviva provides an IT platform to support hospital-at-home care through digital monitoring and real-time communication. Philips has integrated the platform into its clinical workflows.
The partnerships are part of Philips’ push to create a set of interoperable monitoring systems. Philips sees the offering giving health systems more flexibility to deploy and scale monitoring technologies that fit their clinical and operational needs. The company’s capabilities could support that outcome by linking patient data across care settings.
