Philips has formed partnerships with six companies to expand its wearable and out-of-hospital monitoring capabilities, aiming to improve care continuity by employing wearable devices to support patient monitoring between the hospital and home.
The company announced the partnerships on Thursday, which will integrate products from Blue Spark Technologies, Caretaker Medical, Cuviva, LifeSignals, Respiree, and smartQare into its offering.
These agreements 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.
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, enabling 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, including LifeSignals, Respiree, and smartQare, which track vital signs such as pulse and blood oxygen.
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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, which Philips has integrated into its clinical workflows.
They are part of Philips’ push to create a set of interoperable monitoring systems, giving health systems more flexibility to deploy and scale monitoring technologies that fit their clinical and operational needs.
By linking patient data across care settings, Philips’ capabilities could support this outcome, ultimately improving care continuity for patients.
Philips’ partnerships with Blue Spark Technologies, Caretaker Medical, Cuviva, LifeSignals, Respiree, and smartQare reflect the company’s recognition of the importance of wearable devices and monitoring systems in improving patient care and outcomes.
The company’s push to create a set of interoperable monitoring systems is also expected to provide health systems with more flexibility and scalability, allowing them to deploy and scale monitoring technologies that fit their specific clinical and operational needs.
