Philips, Macquarie University and Emory Healthcare partner to launch Australia's first remote intensive care monitoring program

The partnership uses Philips' remote intensive care unit (eICU) technology and will see Emory Healthcare intensivists and critical care nurses based onsite at Sydney's MQ Health. MQ Health is the first university-led integrated health campus in Australia, which brings together research and clinical care. This care model enables the Sydney-based US clinicians to provide continuous night-time critical care oversight to patients back in the United States during daytime hours, enabling the clinical team to be wide awake as opposed to working at night.     

Combining daytime coverage in Atlanta with night-time coverage from Sydney provides around-the-clock remote management of intensive care unit (ICU) patients by critical care specialists, when adverse events are most likely to occur [1], decreasing the risk of complications, shortening patients' length of stay and saving lives [2]. 

Critical care units such as ICUs are high-tech units to care for patients with severe and potentially life threatening conditions that require constant and close monitoring. Philips' eICU program is a comprehensive program that enables health care professionals from a centralized eICU center to provide around-the-clock care for critically ill patients. A study that compared patients receiving usual ICU care with patients who received their ICU care from a hospital that utilized the eICU program, showed that the latter were 26% more likely to survive the ICU and discharged from the ICU 20% faster [3].

"We are operating in a time when connected health solutions can truly make a difference in a patient's experience," said Kevin Barrow, Managing Director Philips Australia and New Zealand. "We know that funding for critical care and critical access is not growing despite increases in demand driven by population growth. This program uses a proactive and continuous care model that enable the right care to be delivered remotely at the right time."

Kevin Barrow added: "We aim to transform the delivery of care to address growing clinician shortages while improving patient outcomes. I am confident that the application of these kinds of solutions will shape the future of healthcare. If we are able to do this across continents we can certainly replicate it locally, connecting Australian clinicians with patients in need across regional and remote areas."

The solution allows for near real-time remote monitoring and early intervention via advance audio-visual technology and algorithms that can predict deteriorations in health, giving clinicians the ability to communicate with local caregivers via live video link, continuously monitor patient health, and advise on the best course of treatment from wherever they are located.

This innovation means hospitals dealing with intensive care physician and nurse shortages can provide patients with 24/7 clinical expertise and additional, proactive support to the in-hospital care team. Bringing critical care closer to the patient, remote monitoring removes the hurdle of geography and reduces the burden of transporting patients. This will help healthcare providers avoid transport associated costs, while patients or their families won't have the stress of transferring to higher level critical care centers.

"Thanks to our eICU program we can continuously monitor Atlanta-based patients from MQ Health in Sydney and support the bedside team by recognising adverse physiology, making critical diagnoses and intervening before those issues become significant problems," said Dr Timothy Buchman, Chief, Critical Care Service, Emory Healthcare. "In Australia, these types of technologies also have far-reaching potential to support care of rural and remote patients. Currently the optimal medical treatment, in a stressful setting such as the ICU, can be thousands of miles away. The introduction of electronically-delivered specialist care has the potential to standardise the quality of care between the CBD and the countryside."

"Clinicians collaborating with industry on innovative technological advances that lead to improvements in patient care is the vision of Macquarie University and MQ Health," said Professor Michael Parr, Clinical Program Head, Critical Care and Anaesthetics at MQ Health.

"This partnership will provide the opportunity to build on North American experience and improve intensive care outcomes for rural and remote Australia, and showing what is achievable through global collaboration."

References

[1]     Gershengorn H.B. 2016. Nighttime Extubations Are Associated With Worse Outcomes For U.S. Intensive Care Unit Patients. Outstanding Epidemiology and Health Services Research in Critical Care. Available online: http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1164/ajrccm-conference.2016.193.1_MeetingAbstracts.A6150. Date accessed: September 2016.

[2]     Tang, Z. et al. 2007. Workflow in intensive care unit remote monitoring: A time-and-motion study. Critical Care Medicine: 35(9): 2057-2063. Available online: http://interruptions.net/literature/Tang-CritCareMed07.pdf. Date accessed: September 2016.

[3]     A Multicenter Study of ICU Telemedicine Reengineering of Adult Critical Care, Chest Journal, March 2014. Available online: http://journal.publications.chestnet.org/article.aspx?articleid=1788059&resultClick=1. Date accessed: September 2016.

For further information, please contact:

Steve Klink
Philips Group Communications
Tel.: +31 6 10888824
E-mail: [email protected]

Albertine Schor
Philips Australia and New Zealand
Tel.: +61 427 915 643
E-mail: [email protected]

Anna Garcia
Issues and Media Manager Macquarie University
Tel: +61 2 9850 1051 
E-mail: [email protected]

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' health technology portfolio generated 2015 sales of EUR 16.8 billion and employs approximately 69,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter.

About Emory Healthcare
Emory Healthcare is a non-profit, charitable, academic health care system consisting of six hospitals, multiple provider locations and more than 2,000 faculty, employed and network physicians in approximately 70 specialties.  As the most comprehensive health care system in Georgia and the only health network in the state that brings together a full range of hospitals, clinics and local practices, Emory Healthcare is committed to providing patients and families with better, more collaborative care for all of their medical needs. The Emory Healthcare Network encompasses teams of providers at our locations across Georgia, including Emory University Hospital, Emory University Hospital Midtown, Emory University Orthopaedics & Spine Hospital, Emory Rehabilitation Hospital and the Wesley Woods Center, Emory Saint Joseph's Hospital and Emory Johns Creek Hospital, the Emory Clinic, and the Emory Healthcare Network physicians, ranging from primary to specialty care providers. Through our integrated, collaborative care network, we are dedicated to providing the standard of care that our patients expect and deserve. For more information, visit www.emoryhealthcare.org.

About MQ Health

• MQ Health is the new name for the Macquarie University Health Sciences Centre, bringing together Macquarie University Hospital, Macquarie University Clinical Associates, the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and clinical components of the Faculty of Human Sciences. MQ Health realises the true and seamless integration of patient-centric clinical care with life changing research and distinctive educational programs. We believe that staying at the frontier of great clinical care requires linkages to evidence based research that transitions to the patient's bedside and a commitment to developing future healthcare professionals. MQ Health has the unique opportunity of integrating all three aspects under one governance structure. For more information visit: www.mqhealth.org.au.

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SOURCE Royal Philips; Emory Healthcare

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