Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, and SingHealth, Singapore’s largest public healthcare cluster, today announced a strategic partnership to enhance healthcare delivery through deploying innovative technologies and accelerating the digital transformation of the healthcare landscape in Singapore. (manilatimes.net)
Mr Lawrence Loke, Group Chief Information Officer, SingHealth (left) and Jasper Westerink, Acting Managing Director, Philips APAC (right) sign on strategic partnership between the two organizations to advance healthcare delivery in Singapore.
This Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) inked between the two organizations signifies a significant step towards building a robust and standardized data architecture for SingHealth. By leveraging Philips state-of-the-art healthcare technologies, the partnership strives to enable seamless digital workflows and improve clinical decision-making. This allows care teams to enhance human interaction with patients, deepen connections and improve outcomes. This will advance SingHealth’s goal to deliver care in a more patient-centric manner through a digital-first strategy.
“We are privileged to partner with SingHealth on this venture to accelerate the digital transformation of healthcare delivery in Singapore,” said Hung Choong Hwang, Country Manager, Philips Singapore. “By combining our technological expertise with SingHealth’s clinical excellence, we aim to set new benchmarks in healthcare innovation, quality and resilience, in line with our vision of delivering better care for more people.”
Under the terms of the MOU, Philips and SingHealth will set up dedicated teams to drive three key projects over the course of three years, focused on integrating imaging data with AI, predictive data management to enable actionable insights and optimizing ICU capacities by boosting monitoring and patient assessment capabilities. As projects under the MOU progress, its potential scope may widen beyond these initial three projects to include other additional areas of collaboration where synergies and opportunities are identified by both parties.
Enhancing healthcare delivery with a digital-first approach through three key projects
1. Getting the right information seamlessly to the right expert: Integrated imaging with AI embedded into workflows
This project will automate and streamline Enterprise Digital Image workflows, including acquisition, storage, distribution, retrieval and archival processes. By centralizing and modernizing the architecture for Radiology, Pathology, and other images for clinical practice, the project aims to standardize clinical access and enhance electronic medical records connectivity. Starting with Radiology, the project will also explore innovations such as the use of embedded AI to automate and integrate workflows.
2. Supporting staff with clinical decision-making: Next-generation predictive enterprise data management
Next-generation data analytics will be deployed to provide real-time, actionable insights to sharpen clinical decision-making. With fully-integrated live stream clinical data as a foundation, the goal is to implement advanced device interface models and introduce programmable AI and visualization layers to support clinical care and enterprise storage. This capability, implemented at scale across the cluster, will be a springboard enabling SingHealth to develop more pioneering innovations in this space globally.
3. Enhancing patient care with Smart ICU: Optimizing capacity based on patient acuity
New clinical decision support tools and advanced monitoring equipment will be used to optimize ICU capacity and enhance efficiency and care quality.
A unified monitoring system, aligned with clinical workflows such as alarm assessments, will be established. The infrastructure will be co-designed to achieve interoperability, ensure cloud and cybersecurity alignment, and support clinical workflow assessments. Additionally, AI-powered models and algorithms will be jointly developed to monitor developments in patients’ conditions, optimize alarm management, and deliver clinical parameter dashboards and avatars.
Partnerships key to future-proofing healthcare delivery with innovation
One of the key challenges in the complexities of the healthcare system is the ability to access and integrate different data sources to form a cohesive patient story. Accurate and timely access to data at critical points in a patient’s journey is key in the digital transformation of the healthcare system. According to the Singapore FHI 2024 report findings, more than one-third (37%) of healthcare leaders surveyed are looking to external partnerships to use data analytics for more informed decision-making.
