Philips and Leiden University Medical Center Extend Collaboration with New Research Agreement on Healthy Aging and Personal Health

PhilipsRoyal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) and Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) today announced a new research collaboration aimed at improving preventative care and chronic care through wearable technologies. The organizations intend to attain new data-driven insights into the relationship between lifestyle and health in elderly people. This will support the development of personalized coaching solutions using wearable sensors to help people to age more healthy and reduce the impact of illness and chronic conditions.

As people live longer and lifestyles change, more people are confronted with chronic disease. In addition to having a major impact on people's quality of life, this puts increased pressure on healthcare systems.

New wearable sensor technologies are rapidly becoming available and could play an important role in healthy lifestyles and treatment compliance. The current challenge is to turn the data these new devices offer into clinically relevant information. This will help build scientifically proven and clinically validated solutions to improve the outcomes of lifestyle intervention programs and medical treatments.

For this purpose, Philips and LUMC will jointly run clinical trials to identify and improve how people respond to lifestyle intervention programs. By analyzing health and wearable sensor data, the partners aim to gain fundamental new insights into how innovative technologies and coaching programs can effectively impact personal lifestyle and health - particularly in people who are at risk of or suffering from chronic conditions.

"We can use the data we obtain to assess new solutions and approaches for personalizing intervention programs that encourage at-risk people to make lifestyle choices, which help prevent the onset of disease, or promote treatment compliance in diagnosed patients," said Simon Mooijaart, MD, PhD, internist-geriatrician at Leiden University Medical Center. "This could help reduce the number of people admitted to hospital for treatment of chronic disease. Furthermore, once people have chronic disease or functional limitations, robust measurement of these lifestyle factors using innovative sensors can help in tailoring healthcare to their specific needs, ultimately improving quality of life in older age."

"The correlation between personal lifestyle and health is key in making the change from a reactive to a proactive healthcare approach in which we help people manage their health before chronic conditions develop and after they are diagnosed," said Henk Valk, General Manager of Philips Healthcare Benelux. "The fastest, most effective way to develop such solutions is to work with expert partners like LUMC, who bring the clinical insights and competencies that complement our own."

The clinical trials run within the Philips and LUMC collaboration will generate key data for developing algorithms to assess physiological and behavioral parameters such as activity, sleep, exercise and sedentary time. The partners will also work on algorithms to translate this information into insights on how users are adhering to their treatment plans and achieve their personal goals. A third focus area will be to develop analytical solutions for predicting parameters such as blood metabolites, blood pressure, blood glucose levels and cardio-respiratory fitness. This could enable the monitoring of health progress in people following a lifestyle intervention program.

While the initial trials will focus on elderly people, the results could lay the foundations for new solutions and services for people of all ages.

Chronic disease already accounts for around 70% of the global healthcare budget[1]. There is overwhelming evidence that lifestyle factors such as unhealthy nutrition, stress, sleep patterns and physical activity levels play a key role in the development of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart failure and elevated blood pressure. Consequently, supporting people in making healthy lifestyle choices could help significantly relieve the burden on healthcare systems and improve people’s quality of life.

This new collaboration extends an already successful relationship between the two partners. As an example, Philips and LUMC are working together in extensive neuro imaging research programs to gain more insight into Alzheimer's disease.

1. World Economic Forum, EFPIA, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Related news articles:

About Leiden University Medical Center
As a center of medical innovations the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) strives towards an (inter)nationally recognized leading role in the improvement of quality of health care. Core business of the LUMC are patient care, research, education and training. The LUMC is part of the Dutch Federation of University Medical Centers (NFU). The NFU is a collaboration of the 8 University Medical Centers of the Netherlands.

About Royal Philips
Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a diversified health and well-being company, focused on improving people's lives through meaningful innovation in the areas of Healthcare, Consumer Lifestyle and Lighting. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips posted 2014 sales of EUR 21.4 billion and employs approximately 105,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. The company is a leader in cardiac care, acute care and home healthcare, energy efficient lighting solutions and new lighting applications, as well as male shaving and grooming and oral healthcare.

Most Popular Now

AI Catches One-Third of Interval Breast …

An AI algorithm for breast cancer screening has potential to enhance the performance of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT), reducing interval cancers by up to one-third, according to a study published...

Great plan: Now We need to Get Real abou…

The government's big plan for the 10 Year Health Plan for the NHS laid out a big role for delivery. However, the Highland Marketing advisory board felt the missing implementation...

Researchers Create 'Virtual Scienti…

There may be a new artificial intelligence-driven tool to turbocharge scientific discovery: virtual labs. Modeled after a well-established Stanford School of Medicine research group, the virtual lab is complete with an...

From WebMD to AI Chatbots: How Innovatio…

A new research article published in the Journal of Participatory Medicine unveils how successive waves of digital technology innovation have empowered patients, fostering a more collaborative and responsive health care...

New AI Tool Accelerates mRNA-Based Treat…

A new artificial intelligence (AI) model can improve the process of drug and vaccine discovery by predicting how efficiently specific mRNA sequences will produce proteins, both generally and in various...

AI also Assesses Dutch Mammograms Better…

AI is detecting tumors more often and earlier in the Dutch breast cancer screening program. Those tumors can then be treated at an earlier stage. This has been demonstrated by...

RSNA AI Challenge Models can Independent…

Algorithms submitted for an AI Challenge hosted by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) have shown excellent performance for detecting breast cancers on mammography images, increasing screening sensitivity while...

AI could Help Emergency Rooms Predict Ad…

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help emergency department (ED) teams better anticipate which patients will need hospital admission, hours earlier than is currently possible, according to a multi-hospital study by the...

Head-to-Head Against AI, Pharmacy Studen…

Students pursuing a Doctor of Pharmacy degree routinely take - and pass - rigorous exams to prove competency in several areas. Can ChatGPT accurately answer the same questions? A new...

NHS Active 10 Walking Tracker Users are …

Users of the NHS Active 10 app, designed to encourage people to become more active, immediately increased their amount of brisk and non-brisk walking upon using the app, according to...

New AI Tool Illuminates "Dark Side…

Proteins sustain life as we know it, serving many important structural and functional roles throughout the body. But these large molecules have cast a long shadow over a smaller subclass...

Deep Learning-Based Model Enables Fast a…

Stroke is the second leading cause of death globally. Ischemic stroke, strongly linked to atherosclerotic plaques, requires accurate plaque and vessel wall segmentation and quantification for definitive diagnosis. However, conventional...