Celebrating 10 years of Philips Foundation

For Philips Foundation, 2024 is a milestone year that marks 10 years of reducing healthcare inequality for underserved communities worldwide. Throughout the past decade, the Foundation has been forging partnerships, teaming up with innovative social entrepreneurs, and leveraging Philips’ technologies to improve accessibility to quality healthcare. We spoke with Margot Cooijmans, director of the Philips Foundation, about the successes and challenges that the Foundation has experienced, as well as upcoming plans and ambitions for the future.

Philips Foundation was established in 2014 with the belief that innovation and collaboration can solve some of the world’s toughest challenges and make a lasting impact on people's lives. Over the past decade, the Foundation has worked to improve healthcare accessibility by joining forces with like-minded partners to address healthcare needs across the globe. In 2023 alone, the Foundation and its partners provided access to care to more than 28 million people in underserved communities, with the goal of providing healthcare access to 100 million people by 2030.

We spoke with Margot Cooijmans, who has been the director of the Philips Foundation since December of 2016, to reflect on the challenges and successes of the projects and investments that have been bringing quality healthcare access to underserved communities in the past decade.

Can you tell us about the evolution of the Philips Foundation since it was established in 2014?

Philips Foundation started in July 2014. In the beginning, our efforts mostly consisted of making donations to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) targeting underserved communities. After the first few years, we realized that we wanted to focus more sharply on the impact we could make. We wanted to drive access to healthcare, and we wanted to know the results of our efforts. We had to be smarter with our strategy and set a goal for improving the healthcare accessibility of underserved communities.

This goal, to provide quality healthcare services for 100 million people annually by 2030, has shaped how the Foundation operates today. It informs our partnerships with healthcare organizations and academic institutions, and our investments in the initiatives of social entrepreneurs with innovative technologies and ways of working that can improve healthcare accessibility. We’re also fortunate to enjoy a deep connection with Philips and its employees who work toward improving healthcare on a daily basis. We’re able to leverage the company’s capacities such as technology, digital solutions and services, volunteers and expertise across a variety of fields. And that connection is one of our most valuable assets – the talent and passion to improve healthcare access.

What challenges have proven the most difficult to address when it comes to healthcare accessibility?

Some of the challenges we’ve encountered over the last decade are often related to first understanding local communities and the context in which they exist. We aim to approach each community in a holistic way and that includes a thorough understanding of the local needs and how the local healthcare system works or fails. We have to ask ourselves questions like: What is the local most heavy health burden and are people aware? Is medical staff locally available? What are their capabilities and are training and education available? If innovation can bring relief, are staff and patients comfortable with digital solutions and services? Can they access services via mobile phones? Is an internet connection available?

The answers to these questions indicate what we can do, mainly  at the  primary care level, often serving as the first point of contact with medical staff, located as close as possible to the patient’s community or workplace. To achieve meaningful impact, we rely on partnerships with social entrepreneurs and locally embedded non-profit organizations. These collaborations are essential for reaching communities and raising awareness effectively.

For example, in Kenya, we saw an opportunity to improve access to ultrasound for pregnant women by tapping into the pool of midwives who already provide antenatal services, are unemployed or working in other capacities outside of healthcare. The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that every pregnant woman should have an ultrasound scan within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. However, ultrasound imaging is often unavailable or inaccessible, especially in rural and remote areas. Additionally, many primary care clinics that provide antenatal care to most of the pregnant women often lack qualified healthcare personnel certified in diagnostic imaging. It was a logical step to strengthen the capacity of midwives and train them to provide ultrasound services.  

Understanding the local health systems and clinical workflows, as well as the healthcare-seeking behaviors of pregnant women in these communities is key. Our efforts needed to respect the existing practices and offer an improvement – not a replacement – of their established methods. We partnered with Aga Khan University and Amref International University to train the midwives to conduct ultrasound screenings, which are then interpreted by a qualified radiologist, either locally or – if not available – remotely. The learnings from this successful collaboration have been instrumental in Kenya’s policy changes allowing midwives to be trained to provide ultrasound screening, thus increasing the access to quality pregnancy care in primary care settings.

How have partnerships played a role in the Foundation’s success?

Our core belief is that healthcare should be accessible to everyone. Underserved communities often face particular challenges, such as unaffordability, distance and inadequate infrastructure, which can make it difficult to travel to seek healthcare. That’s why establishing partnerships is crucial for improving the entire system – from creating awareness in primary healthcare settings to ensuring that all communities have access to technologies that can improve patients’ health outcomes. Collaborating with NGOs or social entrepreneurs who understand local conditions is important because they can engage directly with people in these communities.

These local collaborations can introduce low-cost, innovative approaches to underserved communities that save lives and improve healthcare workers’ ability to support patients. In India, we’ve partnered with Save the Children India, the local social enterprise ZMQ Development and Philips India to improve the diagnosis and management of childhood pneumonia with an easy-to-use, affordable and portable device that can measure the respiratory rate in young infants to prevent pneumonia – a cause of many premature deaths.  

This device – called ChARM – costs approximately USD50 and was created for easy use on active babies and young children, even during times of sickness and fever. Healthcare workers and members of the local community can perform these checks themselves and provide timely referrals to a doctor for treatment, which can save lives and improve community awareness.

Inspired by the success of ChARM in India, we recognized the potential of supporting similar innovations by working with social enterprises. This support is enabled by Philips Foundation Impact Investments, a separate entity under the Foundation that issues loans and equity to social enterprises with innovative methods and technologies enabling access to healthcare. Even in underserved areas, healthcare requires funding to ensure it is sustainable and has a lasting effect on patients' well-being. Affordability plays a major role. While healthcare continues to be a challenging industry, our investments in these enterprises are designed to support the goal of bringing accessible care to more people.

One such example of these investments is Rology, a teleradiology platform. In many low-resource settings, access to radiologists is limited or too expensive, leaving patients waiting days or even weeks for a diagnosis. Rology addresses this gap by connecting healthcare facilities with a network of remote radiologists who provide timely, accurate interpretations of medical imaging, such as X-rays and CT scans. Rology ensures affordability through a pay-per-scan model, zero setup costs and reduced reliance on on-site radiologists, making high-quality diagnostic services accessible to healthcare facilities in underserved areas.

Where will the Foundation focus its efforts as it enters its second decade?

There are opportunities across the globe for expanding healthcare access. We’re looking at opportunities in Latin America, India, and the Philippines, as well as possibilities for growth in Africa. Also, we must assist populations that are facing challenges in accessing quality healthcare, such as Indigenous people in the Americas. There’s also significant potential for scaling the impact of social entrepreneurs and effective collaborations with organizations that have ‘on the ground’ capabilities. These partnerships include expertise centers, like the Centre for Chronic Disease Control, and our new program in India designed to bring knowledge, equipment, and digital efficiency solutions closer to local populations that will directly benefit.

How do you stay motivated in your dedication to driving change in global healthcare access?

At Philips Foundation, what keeps us going is the conviction that the suffering of one person anywhere in the world represents the suffering of all of us. The feeling of justice and the need to fight against disparities is also deep within me. Everyone has the right to survive, to live in well-being, and to access good healthcare regardless of their financial situation or background.

I’m proud to see the growing number of social entrepreneurs and other parties we work with who share this vision, which in turn increases the number of people we’re empowering. Every day, Philips Foundation embraces the opportunity to be a role model for other investors or parties looking to make an impact on healthcare access in support of underserved communities.

What message do you want to share with the Foundation’s partners about their roles in driving the mission forward into the next decade?

My message is very simple: if there’s one day that you don’t feel like you are improving the world, then ask yourself why you’re doing it. If you’re not convinced that what you’re doing makes sense for the world, then stop doing it. My personal conviction is that we can all make a contribution. Combining our efforts can be powerful, but we need courage, stamina, and drive to make it happen. Together, we can be a force for change, and the contribution of the Philips Foundation is to bring people together and work toward a common goal of improving healthcare access worldwide.