Philips is leveraging partnerships to fuel medtech innovation adoption

[Image from Unsplash]

“Partnership is critical for us for expediting innovation and also to make sure that innovation will be a good fit when you get into the adoption phase,” Philips CMO Dr. Carla Goulart Peron said in a recent interview.

By Chris Newmarker and Carrie Pallardy

New technology has significant potential to reshape the delivery of healthcare, but medtech companies need to find ways to enable the integration of innovative technology. Partnership between healthcare stakeholders can be a vital part of actually delivering technology solutions that solve challenges for providers and their patients.

In the second part of an in-depth interview, the company’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Carla Goulart Peron talked about some of the challenges standing in the way of adopting new technology and how Philip’s partnerships with UnitedHealth Group’s Optum and Masimo can help healthcare providers embrace innovation. (In the first part of our series, Peron discusses how medtech could empower patients.)

The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

MDO: Healthcare providers can be slow to adopt new technology. How can they be persuaded to integrate new technologies that improve the patient experience into their workflows?

Philips Chief Medical Officer Dr. Carla Goulart Peron [Photo courtesy of Philips]

Peron: “It goes back to cost effectiveness. Hospitals and providers are being pushed into a challenging space that they were not before. Despite the fact that we have many types of technology out there, there’s some level of resistance to adopt because there is this unbalanced scenario about managing costs and providing better care.

“Working with those providers in close partnership and developing something that is really addressing something that they are feeling on a daily basis is critical. You cannot be developing a solution in isolation and then push for the hospitals to adopt. That’s not going to work.

“The second piece is what I mentioned before. The power of the patient experience has been underestimated in the past, and now that we’re enabling and empowering the patients to be more vocal about it; it matters. We do have technology where you have very simple patches that can be used for seven to 14 days. You can shower. You can do your routine with those patches attached to your chest. Through your phone, the data goes into the cloud, and AI will be assessing the data and informing your physician, for example, if something is wrong with your heart rhythm.

“This actually brings a lot more comfort for the user and also benefits for the patient. The hospitals, maybe they will be able to discharge a little earlier, but remote monitoring helps to ensure that the patients are in a good place and receiving the care that they need.

“It’s the balance: developing something that is really an unmet need for the providers. Sometimes we’re not talking about breakthrough technology that is going to go crazy and create an extremely better outcome. Sometimes it’s, say, that we reduce by 30% the amount of time that the nurse is actually spending at the bedside. And this matters, because then they will be able to take care of more patients and balance that equation better.”

MDO: Philips has entered into a number of technology partnerships with healthcare providers. How can these types of partnerships speed the adoption of new technology?

Peron: “Partnership is critical for us for expediting innovation and also to make sure that innovation will be a good fit when you get into the adoption phase.

“On top of the partnership with the providers, I also believe that another important partnership for some developments are nonprofits or even governments thinking about adoption. I’m very passionate about access to care because of my background. Coming from Brazil and then 10 years in the US, and now, being in Holland, I see the difference in the systems. You really need to keep in mind where you are developing solutions to understand how this will be actually absorbed in different healthcare setups.

“Partnership between industries like Philips, providers, and big institutions where they do really understand the burden. They also have access to good quality data because innovation more and more is highly dependent on data that you are getting from early diagnostics, early intervention, clinical patient outcomes, and even post-discharge.

“Partnerships with the payers and governments also ensure that as good as the technology can be or a solution can be, it also needs to be accessible. That includes cost effectiveness and the ability to prove that the system can absorb that.”

MDO: Philips recently announced a partnership with UnitedHealth Group’s Optum. How is that helping Philips achieve its goals?

Peron: “It’s a win-win partnership. When you partner with an institution like Optum, you do have longitudinal data. You do have the ability to really understand what’s happening with the patient independently of that specific provider. They are receiving primary care treatment or sometimes emergency treatment. That’s really going to be a game changer not only for Phiilips but for everybody that goes into that space.

“You really understand what’s happening with the patient from the early stage of the diagnostics up to the treatment and then discharge. And if there is any reintervention that may be happening in a different institution, you will be able to understand that pathway as well.”

MDO: Philips expanded its partnership with Masimo. How are you planning to leverage more of their technology?

Peron: “I don’t think it is using more of their technology. It’s about interoperability. Philips has a system that operates behind the ICU that is managing different data points, specifically in critical care. Enabling the partnerships to use other vendors actually helps the hospital significantly.

“We see that with Masimo. We partner with other companies like Medtronic, for example, in stroke care. Philips is very open to really partnering to make sure that we’re offering a much more comprehensive type of support for some of the disease states and critical care areas.”

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Chris Newmarker is editor in chief of MassDevice and Medical Design & Outsourcing. Carrie Pallardy is a freelance writer and editor based in Chicago. She has more than a decade of experience writing and reporting in the healthcare space.