Philips, UCSF Team Up to Enhance Digital Patient Experience

Philips and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) began a partnership to develop technology that will enable a modern, more streamlined experience for patients and set a new standard for healthcare delivery.
 
UCSF will use Philips HealthSuite to oversee development of technologies leveraging artificial intelligence to enable personalization and make it easier to select providers, access health information, and receive virtual care at home. Burden will also be eased on care providers with intuitive workflows and real-time decision support. Philips’ open API-based ecosystem aims to foster the level of third-party innovation that, combined with UCSF’s clinical expertise, can achieve these goals. With end-to-end interoperability and orchestration, the cloud-based system enables Philips’ products, systems, devices and services to work seamlessly with those developed by partners and third parties, reflecting diversity of delivery systems and technology partners held by both Philips and UCSF.
 
The work will address the challenge of integrating data from the multitude of often incompatible software systems that generate and track patient information, an intensifying problem as health systems expand networks and extend care beyond hospitals and clinics into the community. The lack of interoperability often requires manual re-entry or hunting down data among the different systems. Integrating different data streams will ease burden on clinical staff, provide richer analytics, and enable more coordinated orchestration of care across diverse settings.
 
“Our goal in partnering with Philips is to serve our patients better,” Aaron Neinstein, MD, associate professor of medicine and director of clinical informatics at UCSF’s Center for Digital Health Innovation told the press. “The services we enable on this platform will help people more easily find the right provider for the care they need, eliminating the worries and delays people often experience. We know that people need convenient access to care, whether for their acute symptoms or chronic conditions, and we can provide a more comprehensive, continuous feeling of support from their care team enabled by virtual and in-person experiences across their care journey.”
 
The co-developed solutions will power coordination and the frictionless flow of care across traditional boundaries of geography, hospital or site of care. “Over the past few years, UCSF Health has developed a network of high-quality providers across the Bay Area who share our vision to make healthcare more accessible, affordable and personalized,” said Shelby Decosta, President of UCSF Health Affiliates Network and Chief Strategy Officer for UCSF Health. “Our partnership with Philips will empower UCSF Health with navigation tools to bring this vision to life across our network of world-class hospitals, community clinics and outpatient centers, as well as through virtual care.”  
 
The agreement includes a combination of applied research and digital solution implementation, ranging from developing advanced artificial intelligence algorithms and virtual care delivery solutions to enable a more continuous, connected care experience, to connecting multiple hospitals to better coordinate a patient’s care journey. The partners will create and share best practices with the healthcare industry, focused on advancing the Quadruple Aim: better healthcare, at lower cost, with improved outcomes, while enhancing the experience for patients and staff.
 
“We need to work together if we are going to move healthcare forward, and we are inspired by UCSF’s willingness to push the boundaries of technology innovation and transform care for their patients,” said Vitor Rocha, Chief Market Leader for Philips North America and member of the Executive Committee. “As consumers, we have come to rely on technology to make our lives easier, such as trusting the cloud to manage our financial data, our commerce and our education. With this partnership, we are looking to simplify healthcare in the same way and make technology solutions pay dividends when it comes to the patient’s time and health.”