White coats and healthcare – Before the doctors come in

Innovation in healthcare equipment, technologies and services is happening in a new way and at a completely new pace. It is now all about empowering doctors for the new realities and opportunities they face ahead. Let’s take a quick tour of PIC to understand more.

Arvind Vaishnav, Vice President, Head of Philips Innovation Campus (PIC) Bangalore gives a quick X-ray of how distributed care, decentralisation, AI, vendor-neutrality, remote diagnostics and interoperability are going to define healthcare in a post-pandemic world.

What is happening at the lab in India—any highlights from the last 2 years and what is about to come? What are you most excited about?

From being known as a software power house to a strategic partner for our business units, markets, and clients, the Philips Innovation Campus – Bengaluru (PIC-B) is at the forefront of the company's digital transformation into a global leader in healthcare. Post-pandemic, we are embracing a hybrid work model, working towards a future-proof and flexible work culture. In-person collaboration and camaraderie are necessary, especially in today’s scenario where time-to-market, and ideas-to-innovation are accelerated. I am really excited to see lot of ‘communities of practices’ like Artificial Intelligence (AI), product leadership, project management etc. within the campus to be active and intentional in pursuing shared goals. In addition, there is,of course, renewed interest in organizing hackathons, roadshows etc., which are pushing the frontiers of innovation.

Can you talk about some of the projects which are in progress?

Today, we are working a lot with AI and Machine Learning (ML) in executing multiple strategic initiatives especially in the areas of radiology, cardiology, maternal, and childcare. For instance, we are engaged in a public-private partnership with a government agency to incorporate AI in the country’s healthcare system. The partnership empowers data scientists and healthcare professionals to collaborate and enable them to access better care and improve outcomes. We are also working with a globally renowned foundation to develop an AI-based application suite to improve the quality and accessibility of obstetric care in low and middle-income countries, to reduce foetal mortality. Another innovation I can think of is ‘Philips Sonicare Prestige 9900’. It correlates data on the power toothbrush through an AI model to provide real-time guidance on brushing pressure, motion, coverage, duration, and frequency.

PIC-B is also driving enhanced levels of collaboration between the various sites comprising business, manufacturing, and market teams that are spread across different locations in India. This is critical because we are now more equipped to extend capabilities for building relevant solutions that can be scaled for use in similar markets. The ‘Made in India’ Affiniti Ultrasound system and mobile surgery systems manufactured from Healthcare Innovation Center (HIC) in Pune, and powered with innovation from PIC-B is a classic example of such an effective collaboration. Overall, we continuously workon garnering deep customer insights to initiate impactful front-end innovations that can address the healthcare continuum in the best way possible.

How different would the future of healthcare be—with distributed care, remote care, AI-diagnostics, nanotech and robots? What are the top 3 things that would be remarkably new?

Healthcare providers around the world are being pushed to increase operational efficiencies and develop new care delivery models owing to the workforce shortages, increasing workloads, and economic challenges. Keeping such challenges and ambitions in mind, I foresee that emerging technologies would redefine the future of healthcare in the coming years.

Elaborate?

I believe that the foundation of a more decentralised healthcare system is being laid through increased data exchange among care sites and cloud-based digital healthcare technologies. By delivering appropriate care at the right time and location, distributed care has thus evolved into a bridge connecting the hospital to the home and the community. This is paving the path for greater virtual collaboration and giving more doctors access to advanced technology. 

Staffing shortages and burnout remain a challenge. Healthcare professionals should use AI in this situation to improve staff capabilities and service in diagnosis. In this context, AI is undeniably an exciting trend as it is helping us make sense of the clinical information to draw insights and plans.This way, I foresee, healthcare entering the world of Internet of Things (IoT) more rapidly. It will aid seamless shift of monitoring from hospital to home, improve workflows, and connect more devices and data sets for actionable insights.

And Robots?

Medical robots are also revolutionising healthcare today. Robots will be able to do tasks with a high degree of precision and accuracy in the upcoming years, especially in controlled surgical conditions, which will streamline, simplify, and secure processes. Overall, technology will continue to aid us in providing more predictive, personal, and accurate healthcare.

As hospitals frequently buy supplies from numerous vendors, this has led to a fragmented digital infrastructure and varied patient experiences.

How do you ensure vendor-neutrality in your innovations? Is it easy?

In order to provide seamless experiences for patients and healthcare providers, various systems and devices must be‘linked’ to each other effortlessly. As hospitals frequently buy supplies from numerous vendors, this has led to a fragmented digital infrastructure and varied patient experiences. I anticipate a growing need and usage of vendor-neutral and interoperable informatics solutions in overcoming this fragmentation.

At Philips, the Philips ‘Radiology Operations Command Center’ (ROCC) is a vendor-neutral virtualized imaging solution that connects imaging professionals in a command centre with technologists at remote scan locations. With ROCC, we ensure that it gets possible for imaging specialists to consult with technicians and guide them to perform scans.The ROCC platform's AI for the camera and console provides operational insights and real-time contextual awareness for imaging departments within an enterprise.

Does collaboration help here?

This integration is made seamless due to the mindful collaborations with other health-tech bodies, along with emerging technologies such as virtual collaboration and cloud. Through the integration of image acquisition with on-demand virtual consultations with radiologists, physicians, operational personnel, and patients, future ROCC products are anticipated to significantly enhance quality and results.

How much can technology help if—God forbid—the world faces a pandemic again, and we have shortages of front-line and back-line healthcare workers?

In many ways, Covid-19 catapulted healthcare into the future. People need access to convenient, equitable and affordable care no matter where they live. In this era of personalized and convenient service in industries such as banking or retail, people expect a similar experience from healthcare. The pandemic created a new urgency for healthcare leaders to expand their virtual care offerings as a way of connecting with patients beyond the walls of the hospital. At the same time, they wanted the flexibility to scale up or down without large upfront capital expenditures.

Effective crisis management also required the rapid exchange of patient information across systems and care settings. Thanks to the flexibility of pay-as-you-go cloud-based services and solutions, healthcare providers were able to quickly scale up digital health technologies to meet new demands. A growing number of healthcare leaders have begun to embrace the cloud, recognizing that cloud platforms purpose-built for healthcare, and the solutions built on top of them, can help pave the way to more cost-effective and connected care, in a highly secure and scalable way.

Virtual care such as remote cardiac monitoring is turning into a mainstay, helping healthcare providers save costs while extending their line of sight to support care transitions from hospital to home. Wearable biosensors can transmit data directly to the cloud, supporting clinical decision-making from a distance. Through remote collaboration between care providers, healthcare systems can make specialist expertise more widely available to address pressing staff shortages and skill gaps, all while offering the flexibility to scale up or down as demands evolve without being locked into fixed capital expenses or having to install new systems.

Are there any cross-pollinations that are very helpful for the healthcare segment- like from innovations happening in BFSI, Defence, Space tech, Consumer tech and Blockchain areas?

The easiest to pick is the evolution of the mobile phone. With the rapid evolution seen over a short period, we witnessed how digital ecosystem innovation was born, disrupting industries – from banking to music and photography. Today, there is an app for everything; and thanks to AI, those apps keep getting smarter every day as they learn from ever-growing masses of data.

At Philips we have often discussed how healthcare, an industry riddled with complexities, will look like if we embraced the same digital best practices. So the questions to ponder upon are how much more pleasant and frictionless could we make patient and staff experiences if we designed medical devices and systems with the same level of smartness and connectivity? How much more value could those systems and devices offer over their lifetime if we were able to update and upgrade them just as easily as our smartphones? And how much faster would we be able to innovate if we adopted the same ecosystem approach that has taken other industries by storm?

Arvind Vaishnav, Vice President, Head of Philips Innovation Campus (PIC) Bangalore

By Pratima H

pratimah@cybermedia.co.in