Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today announced that it is expanding its remote clinical collaboration and virtual training offerings across its portfolio, building on the IIT* (Innovative Imaging Technologies) Reacts collaborative platform. Leveraging innovative technologies, such as augmented reality, for remote virtual guidance, supervision and training, the platform provides unique interactive tools designed to meet the multi-faceted collaborative needs of healthcare professionals and patients.
"It is vital that we continue to advance our offering to help customers increase first-time-right diagnoses, by integrating innovations and technology that alleviate our customers' pain points and streamline workflows," said Bich Le, Business Leader Ultrasound at Philips. "With Reacts' unique interactive tools we can provide secure expert solutions, and the training and support, needed for physicians to make definitive diagnostic decisions effectively and efficiently. This will enable us to accelerate our commitment to the patients we serve today as well as expanding access to imaging for new users and new use cases."
The Reacts platform has already been deployed in more than 80 countries, across various disciplines in both clinical and educational settings. It allows healthcare professionals to interact remotely and dynamically in a wide range of applications, from teleconsultations, secure messaging, remote wound care and tele-ultrasound, to interactive telesurgical assistance and remote procedure supervision.
"Reacts addresses the clear and pressing need for secure remote collaboration and communication between healthcare providers and patients," said Dr. Yanick Beaulieu, head of Clinical Science for Philips Ultrasound. "By deploying this interactive collaboration platform across Philips’ health technology solutions, we can change patient care models, expand telehealth capabilities, and accelerate technological developments in virtual collaboration globally."
Since 2018, Reacts is integrated with the Philips' Lumify point-of-care ultrasound solution, enabling users to share the live ultrasound stream from a Lumify device with a remote colleague on a mobile device, tablet or computer. This allows both parties to simultaneously view the live ultrasound image, as well as the webcam video stream, and provide real time feedback. Lumify with Reacts has proven to be a valuable tool for educational institutions, medical students and resident clinicians, EMS providers with long transit times, disaster relief providers, hospitals with satellite clinics, and clinicians seeking peer-to-peer collaboration for virtual guidance and training.
Lumify with Reacts can provide valuable diagnostic insight for front-line care providers to manage COVID-19-related lung and cardiac complications. Moreover, by enabling remote communication, Reacts reduces the need for physical interaction and can therefore help minimize the risk of virus transmission for medical teams. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Philips has also successfully piloted Reacts to provide case support during image-guided therapy procedures, remotely assisting clinicians as they diagnose and treat patients with coronary artery disease and other cardiovascular diseases. Philips will now further expand Reacts across its Diagnosis & Treatment portfolio.
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 generated 2019 sales of EUR 19.5 billion and employs approximately 81,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries.* IIT Reacts is a wholly owned Philips subsidiary and part of Philips' Ultrasound business.