Nov 13, 2018

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health teams with Philips on Tele-ICU program

Health system leverages tele-ICU as a service model to help deliver access to advanced, quality patient care in rural areas

Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Lebanon, NH - Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today announced an agreement with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health (D-HH) to implement Philips’ eICU program technology. The program, which will go live in July 2019, aims to help reduce mortality, length of stay, and ventilation days while providing patients the care they need, wherever they are located. D-HH is the latest health system to work with Philips to implement a tele-ICU program, further demonstrating the growing global momentum and interest in virtual health care and remote monitoring solutions like Philips eICU.

Hospitals and health systems across the globe are facing increased pressures – from lack of beds and overcrowding, to changing reimbursement models and an ongoing intensivist shortage. Only 47 percent of ICUs in U.S. hospitals currently employ full-time intensivists[1], a number that is expected to continue to drop. In widely dispersed communities, leveraging telehealth technology can help rural hospitals increase access to quality care by providing the bedside team with expert guidance and 24/7 monitoring of critically ill patients. By incorporating Philips eICU technology, D-HH will be able to build on its mission of providing each person the best care, in the right place, at the right time, every time – whether at the health system’s flagship hospital, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH, or at the patient’s local hospital with the support of specialists based at DHMC.

“As New Hampshire’s only tertiary care medical facility, demand for our services is high,” noted Dartmouth-Hitchcock Chief Clinical Officer Edward J. Merrens, MD. “The use of telemedicine across the D-HH system and around the region aligns with our mission of providing the best care in the appropriate setting, whether it be at DHMC or at the patient’s local hospital with the support of Dartmouth-Hitchcock specialists.”

“For Dartmouth-Hitchcock, the tele-ICU program will help their clinicians better serve their patient population while eliminating the need to travel to get that level of specialized care,” said Felix Baader, Business Leader of Monitoring Analytics at Philips. “This same technology can also help health systems better manage physician burnout, or in other cases, capacity management. Health systems face many different challenges across the globe, and it’s gratifying to see how one solution can be adapted to address unique challenges to achieve the same goal: better care and better outcomes.”

Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s program will start with medical, surgical, and neurology intensive care units at DHMC, along with the intensive care unit at Cheshire Medical Center, a D-HH system hospital. The program’s tele-ICU hub will also be located at DHMC, where it will leverage Philips IntelliSpace eCareManager, the program’s source-agnostic software, providing clinicians with a single integrated view of patient data. Philips’ eICU program combines predictive analytics, data visualization, and advanced reporting capabilities to deliver vital information to bedside caregivers. By receiving this remote support, the bedside team is empowered to make better informed, more efficient, and more effective value-based care decisions.

Following the success of similar programs in the Americas, the UK, Australia, and the Middle East, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health is the latest health system to incorporate the Philips eICU telehealth model to enable clinicians to deliver improved critical care support to patients across multiple sites.

About Royal Philips

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips generated 2017 sales of EUR 17.8 billion and employs approximately 77,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at http://www.philips.com/newscenter.

About Dartmouth-Hitchcock

DARTMOUTH-HITCHCOCK (D-H), New Hampshire’s only academic health system, serves a population of 1.9 million across New England. D-H provides access to more than 1,200 primary care doctors and specialists in almost every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. DHMC was named in 2018 as the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by US News & World Report, nationally ranked in gynecology, and recognized for high performance in 14 clinical specialties. Dartmouth-Hitchcock also includes the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, one of only 49 NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the nation; the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, the state’s only children’s hospital; affiliated member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, and New London, NH, and Windsor, VT, and Visiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire; and 24 Dartmouth-Hitchcock clinics that provide ambulatory services across New Hampshire and Vermont. The D-H system trains nearly 400 residents and fellows annually, and performs world-class research, in partnership with the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and the White River Junction VA Medical Center in White River Junction, VT.

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