Medical equipment provider Koninklijke Philips N.V. continues to make an aggressive push into personal and digital healthcare. Philips’ strategy to establish itself as a main player in the field of consumer health technology was evident in the company’s recent string of new product launches, marketing and technology agreements.

New products include a mobile app to help diabetes patients manage their disease and new apps for healthy living and healthy aging.  Philips’ new products leverage its HealthSuite platform, a cloud-based set of connected devices, apps and digital tools to enable personalized, ongoing healthcare.

Philips’ new multi-year deals with Bon Secours Charity Health System and Banner Health reaffirms its strategy of proactively working with various healthcare organizations to create personal healthcare products and services, the company says.

For example, Philips’ Jovia Coach mobile app is targeted at the more than 400 million people worldwide that live with Type 2 diabetes.

Jovia Coach is intended to help users adopt dietary, lifestyle and exercise habits that can reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Users will have the ability to complete challenges and tasks, track meals and physical activity. In addition, users can interact with a personal lifestyle coach to guide them through behavioral changes that can lead to better health, and interact with a peer group for support. Wearable fitness trackers can be integrated to the app to capture user’s exercise data, such as the number of steps taken each day, or users can manually enter the data.

Jovia Coach targets overall population health while supporting health networks in their provision of proactive, preventative services to their communities, says Jorgen Behrens, business leader, Personal Health Solutions for Philips.

The bevy of new applications around HealthSuite enable consumers to proactively manage health conditions, connect and share data with their healthcare providers and lead a healthier lifestyle, the company says.

The HealthSuite tool set collects and analyzes data from a variety of sources including electronic medical records, diagnostic and treatment information, medical images, doctors’ notes and reports. HealthSuite can also gather data from emerging medical sources such as portable heart or blood glucose monitors and wearable health and fitness trackers.

HealthSuite will also gather data from the suite of new apps, which includes:

• The Avent uGrow digital parenting platform to help new parents understand and support their baby’s healthy development. UGrow connects wirelessly to the Philips Avent smart baby monitor and smart ear thermometer, as well as collating manually inputted data such as feeding and sleeping patterns. Philips plans to integrate its Smart Baby Bottle Sleeve, which monitors milk temperature and consumption, as well as an air purifier to monitor air quality a lighting system to create a relaxing soothing environment. Plans are also in the works to include Amazon Echo voice activation.
• DreamStation Go, a portable continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, technology that allows users to receive CPAP therapy when traveling. DreamStation Go connects to Philips’ DreamMapper mobile app to provide users with daily progress reports, goal tracking, tips and reminders to help them stay on track with therapy.
• Philips Heart Health program is an app-based behavior change program to help reduce lifestyle-induced risk factors for cardiovascular disease in adults. Users receive a personalized plan based on medical guidelines and their health profile to increase their physical activity levels, adopt a healthy diet, achieve better sleep, recognize stress triggers and achieve a healthy weight.
• Philips digital oral care management platform includes Philips Sonicare FlexCare Platinum Connected toothbrush and the Philips Sonicare Breath care system. The Sonicare connected toothbrush uses smart sensor technology inside the toothbrush and personalized coaching to help improve brushing technique. Philips Sonicare Breath care system features a breath analyzer that measures and tracks a user’s breath quality to help him improve oral care habits. Both products sync with Philips’ Sonicare app.

Philips’ agreement with Bon Secours Charity Health System, a member of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network, will make Philips digital program available to both health systems. The multi-year agreement has a potential value of $180 million. The deal, which is an adjunct to the existing 15-year, $500 million relationship between Philips and Westchester Medical that began in 2015, will allow Bon Secours to provide advanced medical technologies, such as imaging systems, patient monitoring, telehealth, clinical informatics, and a comprehensive range of clinical and business consulting services.

“As part of a regional health system, we want to increase standardization, connectivity and optimization of our technology resources, while still having the flexibility to invest in the innovations we need to support healthier communities,” says Bon Secours CEO Dr. Mary Leahy. “By collaborating with Philips, we can go beyond providing diagnosis and treatment and work on proactive health management such as healthy living and prevention, building health in our communities.”

Bon Secours serves 425,000 patients in New York’s Rockland, Orange, and Sullivan counties, Pike County, Pennsylvania, and in Sussex, Passaic, and Bergen counties in New Jersey.

Bon Secours joins a growing list of healthcare provider deals being struck by Philips to provide new technology for hospitals and health systems. Other organizations include Augusta University Health, Mackenzie Health, Marin General Hospital, Medical University of South Carolina, and Banner Health. Health systems outside of North America include Royal Belfast Hospital and Ashford St. Peters Hospital in the United Kingdom, and the New Karolinska Solna Hospital in Sweden.

Philips’15-year partnership with Banner Health expands on a current collaboration in telehealth. Both companies view the agreement as a way to deliver integrated programs that drive individualized outcomes that focus on healthy living and prevention, diagnosis, treatment and home care, Philips says.

Philips will work with Banner to uncover ways to improve treatment outcomes through individualized patient plans, make it easier for patients to manage their own health, drive efficiency and identify best practices that enable Banner to improve the patient experience. Philips declined to provide more details around that aspect of the deal.

“We have always taken a long-term view of our business, and realized very early on that the current healthcare system was not sustainable,” says Banner Health CEO Peter Fine. “With legislation driving reform, we knew that we needed to manage population health and essentially keep people healthy and out of the system to reduce costs, while ensuring better patient outcomes.”

Prior, Philips and Banner collaborated on a pilot to demonstrate how telehealth can support connected health initiatives and better manage care for patients with multiple chronic conditions. The intensive ambulatory care pilot treats patients with complex medical situations due to multiple chronic conditions.

Latest results from the pilot show continued progress in reducing costs, hospitalizations and re-admissions for chronically ill, complex patients through telehealth.

Philips and Banner examined 128 patients who had at least one 12-month intensive ambulatory care episode to see the prolonged impact on patient outcomes. The analysis of patient results over the first full year of the program revealed that the IAC program helped:

• Reduce overall costs of care by 34.5%.
• Reduce hospitalizations by 49.5%.
• Reduce the number of days in hospital by 50%.
• Reduce the 30-day readmission rate by 75%.

“This most recent shows that we were able to achieve even more significant cost savings and reduced hospitalization rates,” says Banner Health vice president of patient care innovation Deb Dahl.