Philips, UCSF team up to improve interoperability and the digital patient experience

Health tech giant Philips is collaborating with the research-driven health system of University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to streamline the digital patient experience and improve healthcare delivery using Philips HealthSuite—a cloud-based care platform that enables virtual care, simplifies patient navigation, and uses AI to personalize care, all while bolstering interoperability.

Interoperability issues have long plagued health data exchanges, and the pressure is on to tend to them now that the ONC is cracking down on interoperability rules. Essentially, hospitals and provider networks aren’t all speaking the same language when it comes to patient health data, and data-sharing issues prevent providers from seamlessly exchanging information like health record data from different healthcare institutions, resulting in delayed care, duplicate testing, and extra work for clinicians. In April, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) enforced the 21st Century Cures Act requiring healthcare providers, payers, health information exchanges (HIEs), and electronic health record (EHR) vendors to abide by new interoperability regulations meant to simplify health data exchange to make healthcare more efficient—which can ultimately help curb rising healthcare costs.

Philips’ HealthSuite solution is a triple threat—it addresses the needs of health systems, patients, and clinicians alike, which could make it an attractive digital health investment.

• Philips’ HealthSuite can integrate data from multiple different incompatible software systems to efficiently track and relay patient data across the care continuum. This contrasts with the way many hospitals and health systems deal with data exchange—often resorting to avoidable manual data entry or following a long-winded trail of patient data. For providers, this wastes clinician time that could be used for providing patient care. And for patients, that means untimely care, which can be consequential for patients with urgent medical needs.
• Health systems that are already looking to build out their digital health ecosystems may find it more convenient to invest in a comprehensive solution, like Philips'. In addition to all its HealthSuite features, Philips also has its own cybersecurity services arm, and a remote patient monitoring offering (via its $2.8 billion acquisition of BioTelemetry).