INDUSTRY INTERVIEW: Philips Federal/Military Healthcare
MMT 2009 Volume: 13 Issue: 8 (December)
Senior Marketing Manager
Philips Federal/Military Healthcare
Q: Describe Philips Healthcare.
A: Philips Healthcare is dedicated to providing solutions designed around the needs of clinical care teams and patients by combining our unique clinical expertise with human insights. We deliver innovative, intuitive solutions that help save lives and efficiently use resources. For the military, we provide a breadth and depth of products for each echelon of care, from battlefield to bedside, along with comprehensive training and integrated service solutions.
Q: What experience does Philips have working with the military?
A: Philips has worked with the military for over 20 years. A good example of this long-term partnership is the Deployable Medical Systems program. This program provides diagnostic imaging technology, including CT scanners, for use in conflict areas throughout the world. With the types of injuries now occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan, survivability rates dramatically increase for the wounded who quickly reach imaging facilities, as critical CT scans provide valuable data that guide rapid diagnosis and treatment.
We launched the diagnostic imaging industry’s first “training with industry” program with the U.S. government, which is an extensive, one-year training program for biomedical engineers on Philips X-ray products prior to overseas/ war zone assignment. Clinicians and application experts receive training on Philips products at many of the Department of Defense teaching hospitals around the United States and at the Joint Services Academy.
Q: What does Philips leadership in the area of emergency care offer the military?
A: Some of our key emergency care products include the Philips HeartStart MRx ALS Monitor/Defibrillator, the HeartStart FR series of AEDs, and the IntelliVue MP2 patient monitor. Together, these products provide industry-leading monitoring capabilities, superb diagnostic capabilities, robust STEMI clinical decision support tools and predictive instruments and proven resuscitation therapies. Our approach to data management, “connected care,” means that information can flow with the patient from point of injury through medevac transport to military treatment facilities for optimal patient care.
We are committed to delivering meaningful innovations that help save lives. In support of this goal, some recent key advances in emergency care are the next-generation Q-CPR measurement and feedback tool with a digital Q-CPR meter that displays dynamic, real-time feedback for each compression on the patient’s chest to help adjust performance, the new DXL ECG algorithm with STEMI clinical decision support tools that enable confident decision-making to help speed triage, and core temperature monitoring to support cooling protocols.
Q: What is a key feature that sets Philips products apart?
A: While Philips provides products for each echelon of care, we go a step further as they are designed to work together throughout the care continuum to help you save lives and safeguard resources. For example, when the HeartStart MRx Monitor/Defibrillator or IntelliVue MP2 patient monitor is used in the field, it’s typically transported with the patient to the next care level. The MRx defibrillator can move data at LAN speed. Plus, it’s equipped with Bluetooth technology, so you can send vitals, waveforms and 12-leads using a variety of technologies to wherever you need it to go. At the military treatment facility, these devices can be connected to Philips bedside monitors to transfer data and are then returned to service. And Philips products use similar interfaces, which makes training easy and helps ease the burden of turnover. Our products also share sensors, disposables and other supplies to help you more easily manage inventory costs.
Q: Have you had any recent successes? What is next?
A: Our HeartStart MRx Monitor/Defibrillator was just awarded a corporate exigency contract from the Defense Logistics Agency. We see this as an endorsement of the MRx’s rugged technology, which passed the military airworthy testing with no modifications to the commercial unit. Our new hospital-grade, 2.6-pound MP2 monitor has been receiving a lot of interest from all the military services as well. And the MP2 received an Army Airworthy Release last year.
Philips invests extraordinary time and resources in understanding the needs of our customers and the unique environments in which they use our products. We are working with the military to share ideas on how to save more lives in the future within each care facet, from miniaturized, integrated battlefield needs, to networked transport monitor/defibrillators, all the way to remote home care for the recuperating warfighter. ♦