Royal Philips (NYSE:PHG) today announced two separate steps toward helping patients receive remote care as telehealth’s importance continues to grow.
Amsterdam-based Philips said today that it launched its Philips Respironics mask selector 3D facial scanning system for fitting masks and formed a strategic collaboration with BioIntelliSense to monitor at-risk patients from the hospital into the home.
The company touts its Respironics mask selector as the first and only clinically validated solution of its kind, as it helps providers fit nine of 10 patients with the right mask from the start, offering help in the shift toward digitized healthcare and reduced costs associated with fitting time and mask waste.
Using 3D camera technology, scans with the system capture 150 frames and 15 million points of facial geography data. Philips’ algorithm identifies the 46,200 data points most critical to providing an accurate and precise mask recommendation to make a personalized Philips Respironics mask type, cushion and frame size for PAP therapy, offering 11 sizes in total.
The 3D scanning option is available in-office for precise recommendations, but, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Philips is offering a 2D version of the mask selector which can be used remotely from the patient’s home with the same proprietary algorithm as the 3D version.
“Mask selector promises to transform the way DMEs and sleep labs provide care and also how CPAP patients experience care,” Philips sleep OSA business leader Mark D’Angelo said in a news release. “This data-driven solution can not only help DMEs and sleep labs operate more efficiently by reducing the burden and expense of a potentially lengthy mask fitting process, but also help to improve patient compliance by delivering a personalized mask specific to the individual needs of the patient.”
Philips’ partnership with BioIntelliSense is set to integrate the latter’s BioSticker device into the former’s remote patient monitoring offering to improve how clinicians monitor at-risk patients living with chronic conditions remotely via vital signs, physiological biometrics and symptomatic events via a discreet wearable patch for monitoring up to 30 days.
BioSticker is a single-use, FDA-cleared wearable device that provides minute-level data across a broad set of vital signs, physiological biometrics and symptomatic events over 30 days.
The collaboration seeks to regularly transmit patient data to provide insights into a patient’s condition, allowing care teams in the U.S. to intervene earlier before adverse events occur in COVID-19 patients who do not require hospitalization.
“With more patients interacting with their doctors from home and more hospitals developing strategies to virtually engage with their patients, remote patient monitoring is now, more than ever, an essential tool,” Philips chief business leader of connected care Roy Jakobs said in a release. “Building on Philips’ global leadership in patient monitoring, which includes an extensive suite of advanced monitoring solutions, platforms and sensors, this is the latest example of our capability to allow more seamless, cloud-based data collection across multiple settings from the home to the hospital and back into the home.
“Patient data, coupled with our clinically differentiated and leading AI-powered technology, quantifies the data into relevant actionable insights to help detect deterioration trends and support care interventions – all while outside the walls of the hospital.”