Innovation that matters to you

As healthcare continues to transition to value-based care models, equipping providers with the technology and tools they need to drive efficient, effective, scalable and personalized clinical outcomes will become increasingly important. Along with the emerging role of telehealth monitoring, intelligence driven clinical management and data interoperability have created an enhanced ability to improve care across the health continuum for those impacted by sleep or respiratory conditions. With more than 10 years of cloud-based data sharing experience and analytics around more than 7 million patient lives, Philips has a long history of leading new innovation in informatics designed to help patients sleep and breathe easier.

An even greater opportunity now exists with the development of the Care Orchestrator connected care management application powered by the Philips HealthSuite digital platform – which enables and hosts a series of interoperable health tech software applications that collect key data and information elements through telemetric-capable products and devices. Care Orchestrator is a connected health technology in the homecare space that connects the portfolio of sleep and respiratory care enabling data, clinical management workflow, informatics and intelligence for providers, payers and patients within a single application.

So how will connected sleep and respiratory care actually work, given the challenges in today’s market? Reimbursement levels no longer cover therapeutic ineffectiveness or inefficiency. Government-mandated competitive bidding in the U.S. is putting pressure on medical device manufacturers and home medical equipment (HME) providers alike. Compliance-driven payer policies are adding even more strain. In addition, many models of care are high touch and complicated by disparate data sources, labor intensive set-up and too much manual workflow, while clinicians are strapped for time more than ever before.

Connected health technology can help mitigate these challenges and spur positive change by bringing the right information together to better empower clinicians, analyze and understand patient needs and outcomes, and automate critical processes. Here’s what “connected” sleep and respiratory care means today, and how it will expand in the future:

• Telehealth Monitoring – Leveraging data and connected devices, we can change patients’ lives with a comprehensive, connected support system, combining data from oxygen and ventilation devices and accessories with telehealth programs. We have the ability to monitor and tailor each patient’s treatment based on timely data and informatics.

• Clinical Management – Treating patients with sleep and respiratory disorders used to be a pretty isolated process. For example, sleep apnea patients were often tested, diagnosed and assigned a CPAP machine, and that was that. But today’s more engaged health consumers want convenient access to information about their conditions, and the data to help them track results as they adapt to therapy. At the same time, providers are drawing out more relevant data from devices that play a role in diagnosis, treatment, adherence and follow up. Managing sleep and respiratory patients with chronic conditions is truly a “team sport” – with different players taking part in the care treatment pathway at different times. Integration, transparency and sharing of data among the entire care team will create a longitudinal profile experience for every individual, enabling providers to collaborate on sleep and respiratory challenges and overall general wellbeing. With the introduction of Care Orchestrator, Philips has the capability to take care even further. We have the ability to monitor, and personalize every patient’s treatment based on timely data and informatics.

• Predictive and interventional intelligence – Through a connected health platform, virtual coaches accessible via desktop and mobile devices offer instruction and motivation to patients. These coaches can provide patients with basic information about their disorders, tips on equipment and insight into the severity of their health challenges. Clinicians will have more educational tools to offer patients, which provide guidance on how to best use products and help. And, risk-scoring algorithms can identify potential noncompliant patients for interventional management and then direct clinical and patient support staff to focus on the patients that need the most assistance, while reducing high-touch follow up with those who have adjusted well to therapy.
  
  
• Data Interoperability – With insights enabling clinicians to focus on the patients in most need, they can also use their patient hours more efficiently, bringing more focus to concerns and questions that require more in-person consultation. The integration of different data sources (devices, EMRs, sleep labs, billing systems and payers) enables providers to automate and standardize operations, and reinvest and redeploy valuable resources, lifting a burden off of homecare providers, therapists and others. For example, data and insights that enable the automation of the outreach and equipment resupply process can create more efficient operations while enabling therapists to focus on patient compliance challenges.
  
  

Now more than ever, effective treatment for sleep and respiratory issues must be factored into ongoing health and wellness, with information that empowers the right team of clinicians and caregivers who will both treat patients when sick and help keep people healthy. By connecting data and informatics from across the health continuum and bringing sleep and respiratory care into the fold, we are already enabling homecare providers, physicians and payers to address both the cost and care challenges that lie ahead and are playing a key role in driving the future of healthcare. By adding powerful solutions such as Care Orchestrator to the Philips Health Suite digital platform, we’re building on our commitment to bring innovative technology solutions into different care settings, and to provide streamlined approaches for diagnosing and treating sleep and respiratory conditions today while paving the way for a healthier tomorrow.

[1] World Health Organization. (n.d.). Retrieved June 27, 2016, from http://www.who.int/gard/publications/chronic_respiratory_diseases.pdf

[2] Keehan, S. P., Sisko, A. M., Truffer, C. J., Poisal, J. A., Cuckler, G. A., Madison, A. J., ... & Smith, S. D. (2011). National health spending projections through 2020: economic recovery and reform drive faster spending growth. Health Affairs, 10-1377.