Philips leads large scale eHealth initiative to deliver coordinated care for tens of thousands of chronic disease patients across Europe

Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG; AEX: PHIA) and a consortium of leading European healthcare regions, companies, universities and hospitals* today announced the start of the first large scale care coordination and telehealth program in the European Union to support tens of thousands of people living with chronic conditions. The three-year ACT@Scale program will collect and analyze the health outcome and economic impact data for large populations of chronic patients and elderly people to develop, test and consolidate ‘best practice’ care coordination and telehealth programs that can be replicable and successfully rolled out across the European Union. The program aims to reach more than 75,000 patients in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain and Denmark by 2019.

“Today, 70 percent of Europe’s healthcare budget is spent on patients living with chronic conditions, largely a result of Europe’s aging population and rapidly changing care needs,” said Jeroen Tas, CEO Connected Care and Health Informatics, Philips. “Philips is committed to helping care providers and governments implement innovative, connected care delivery models that help improve patient self-management and care collaboration. The ACT@Scale program will provide the evidence needed to successfully deliver a seamless patient experience with better outcomes at lower cost.”

The five participating healthcare regions are all in the process of rolling out innovative care coordination and telehealth services. Within the ACT@Scale program, they will share an agreed and standardized data set including program outcomes such as the number of patients included, (re)hospitalizations, duration of hospitalizations and mortality rates. They will also assess economic impact factors such as cost per patient and the impact on hospitals income models. This data is to support the development of new and sustainable business models. Next to this patient satisfaction scores are measured and the degree to which connected technology empowers people and affects health outcomes.

The regions involved comprise Catalonia (Spain), which has developed programs to support nursing homes, reduce hospital re-admissions, manage complex cases and promote physical activity; Southern Denmark (Denmark), which is rolling out a telehealth program to deliver psychiatric treatment; Northern Ireland (UK), which has remote telemonitoring programs to support COPD and diabetes patients, and manage maternal obesity; Northern Netherlands (The Netherlands), with programs to provide specialist support for COPD, asthma and heart failure patients, and connect healthcare and community services for chronic disease patients; and the Basque Country (Spain), which is rolling out programs to support older people with complex health and social care needs, plus telehealth services for chronic heart failure patients. 

“Telehealth and coordinated care services may offer the elderly and otherwise frail individuals the ability to maintain their independence for longer and enjoy a significantly better quality of life, but they also involve significant changes to the healthcare system and the recipients’ ability to self-manage,” said Professor Erik Buskens, Professor of Medical Technology Assessment at University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG). “ACT@Scale will allow us to determine the most cost-effective ways of implementing those changes while also maximizing the benefits for Europe’s ageing population.”

First findings available end of year
The ACT@Scale scientific consortium members comprise of University Medical Center Groningen (The Netherlands), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), City University London (UK), Universitätsklinikum Würzburg/Klinikum der Bayerischen Julius-Maximilians-Universität (Germany), University of Hull (UK), Kronikgune-Centre for Research Excellence in Chronicity (Basque Country, Spain), Hospital Clinic of Barcelona (Spain) and Philips. It is anticipated that the first preliminary findings will be available from the end of Q4, 2016.

ACT@Scale builds on the successful ACT program, a two-and-a-half year study (2013 – 2016) that looked into the results of European integrated care programs. Thousands of interviews were conducted with participating patients and care providers. These learnings on success factors are applied to significantly grow the ACT@Scale healthcare regions’ coordination and telehealth programs. The program is part of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP-AHA), an initiative from the European Commission under its Innovation Union strategy, and aims to increase the average healthy lifespan by two years by 2020.

eHealth Week 2016
Philips, a leader in care coordination and telehealth and a trusted partner for governments, healthcare authorities and hospitals throughout the world, will be showcasing its latest eHealth and coordinated care solutions at the upcoming eHealth Week, booth N21, Hall 2 (June 8 – 10, Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam, The Netherlands). For updates on Philips’ presence at eHealth Week, visit www.philips.nl/ehealthweek.