Digitalization is also a key trend in healthcare, touching almost every facet and opening up new opportunities for the delivery of care. We have already seen a huge step-up in adoption of digital technology, especially post-COVID, as health-conscious consumers and capacity-stressed health systems turn to technology to help them address their challenges.
Also for those 3.5 billon people around the world who do not have access to healthcare today, digitalization holds the key to radical improvement in their lifetime, as digital solutions are intrinsically much more scalable, and thus support wider prevention, better triage, and lower cost per treatment.
Today, Philips is already very much a digital company, with 1 in 2 of our R&D employees working in software development and data science. By integrating data, we are able to create smarter, connected health solutions. Applying clinical decision algorithms and predictive analytics, for example, we can use data to deliver personalized, actionable insights. For instance, to motivate healthy behavior through digital coaching, or to alert medical teams to potential problems.
We believe that digitalization can accelerate the adoption of much-needed sustainable models of healthcare, including wider access to care, e.g. by enabling underserved communities to 'leapfrog' the gap in provision of primary services.
As a purpose-driven health technology company, we are very conscious of our responsibility towards society and of the need to continue to embed sustainability ever deeper in the way we do business – not only in our own operations, but across the value chain, together with our customers and supply partners.
Over a decade ago, we started implementing product requirements for software development, and over the years we realized that we need to approach this topic from a broader perspective.
Our strategy aims to capture the potential of digital to help us realize our sustainability ambitions. This strategy is built around four pillars:
If designed well, the digitalization of healthcare can radically improve access and delivery of care, as well as enable much more efficient use of natural resources.
Robert Metzke
Global Head of Sustainability, Philips
We believe that digitalization can extend access to care to hundreds of millions of people, driving a shift to more sustainable and resilient models of healthcare globally.
Robert Metzke
Global Head of Sustainability, Philips
Digitalization offers tremendous scope to improve the delivery of care – benefiting patients, clinicians and administrators alike. It also has significant potential to reduce the environmental impact of healthcare. However, we can only harness that potential by purposely designing our digital systems to advance sustainable development, and by working together with others in our ecosystem – care providers, practitioners, knowledge partners, and suppliers.
Across industry, we need to team up with experts, e.g. from the world of software architecture, to ensure we make the right decisions and trade-offs for a sustainable future. Two key questions come to mind for these experts:
Philips Global Head of Sustainability
Mr. Metzke leads Philips’ activities in Sustainability where he drives the company’s strategy towards innovative, sustainable business models and embedding sustainable and circular ways of working across Philips.
In particular, Robert and his team are leading all activities with regards to Philips' environmental responsibility, with a focus on climate action, circular economy and expanding access to healthcare in underserved communities, as part of Philips overall purpose to improve people's health and well-being. Before joining Philips, Mr. Metzke worked at McKinsey & Company as a consultant where he gained 5 years of experience in strategy and innovation in the high-tech, healthcare and public sectors. Mr. Metzke has a background in journalism, science publishing (Science/ AAAS) and academic research (physics). He is married, has three children and lives in the Netherlands.
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