April 15, 2020 — Philips and UK HealthCare, the clinical enterprise of the University of Kentucky, announced a collaboration to create Kentucky’s only operating clinical command center for tele-critical care and operational optimization. Leveraging Philips’ acute telehealth platform, eCareManager, the academic medical center is implementing a centralized virtual care model to help providers detect risk of patient deterioration so they can intervene earlier and help improve care outcomes for the organization’s sickest patients.
Philips’ eICU Program is built around eCareManager, which uses advanced analytics and AI to synthesize patient data and deliver actionable insights to support proactive care. Using this comprehensive system, University of Kentucky (UK) HealthCare will provide 24/7 remote monitoring and access to specialists for patients in the neurological, trauma, surgery, post-anesthesia care, medical intensive care, emergency department and cardiovascular patient care venues. The institution also aims to improve bed utilization and patient flow across its 160 ICU beds at two hospitals.
Since COVID-19 is predominantly a respiratory illness, patients with more severe cases may require ICU care. eCareManager acuity based scoring tools monitor a patient’s condition to detect subtle deteriorations prior to becoming adverse events. Predictive AI-enabled algorithms such as Sentry Score, designed to focus on a patients cardiovascular and Respiratory systems, provide clinicians in the telehealth center with predictive insights into those patients with the highest probability of requiring an intervention in the next 60 minutes. As bed availability and critical decisions on patient throughput are required, eCareManager integrates as part of its Clinical Performance Applications Suite the Discharge Readiness Score, a predictive algorithm that provides clinicians objective scoring on a patients risk of death or readmission within 48 hours of a planned discharge.
“In these most challenging times, healthcare organizations need digital technology to enhance the patient experience, improve health outcomes, lower the cost of care, and enhance the work-life of care providers now more than ever before,” said Roy Jakobs, Chief Business Leader Connected Care, member of the Executive Committee at Royal Philips. “Partnering with UK HealthCare to address these concerns for the sickest patients demonstrates Philips’ commitment to deliver unique approaches to help meet the demand of healthcare’s greatest challenges.”
“This partnership is vital to our foundational vision of high value care. Leveraging technology and highly developed clinical algorithms will aid our progressive high-performance health system,” said Colleen Swartz, M.D., Vice President for Hospital Operations at UK HealthCare. “Especially during this time of increased need for very specific isolation and care models in managing COVID-19 patients, the application of virtual monitoring will aid our teams in care provision. Philips is an essential partner in our efforts to progress care across the state.”
First of its kind outcomes-based partnership
As the shift to value-based care and reimbursement is increasingly dependent upon measurable outcomes, Philips and UK HealthCare plan to measure Key Performance Indicator metrics and will work together to identify improvement areas and generate mutual value. The partnership between UK HealthCare and Philips is a pioneering model in ICU telehealth, focused on addressing the quadruple aim by measuring outcomes across both clinical and operational value. The Philips eICU Program is uniquely positioned to partner with customers on innovative outcomes-based models in acute care. With the goal of improving patient care, clinical efficiencies, and ICU quality best practices through telehealth, eICU Program outcomes are demonstrated in peer reviewed publications.
As health systems seek to improve health outcomes, eICU programs enable a co-located team of intensivists and critical care nurses to remotely monitor patients in the ICU regardless of patient location, helping to optimize care costs and enhance clinician and patient satisfaction. Intensivists and nurses based in a telehealth eICU hub are supported by high-definition cameras and communications technology, predictive analytics, data visualization and advanced reporting capabilities to support their frontline colleagues.
Dashboards bring together data from the EMR and patient monitors on the ICU floor, where advanced algorithms alert to signs of deterioration helping the care team to proactively intervene at an earlier stage. eICU programs have been the subject of peer-reviewed literature since 2002, with outcomes data presenting clinical benefits in mortality reduction and operational systems benefits through increased throughput of ICU patients by reducing ICU patient length of stay.
Philips is the global leader in centralized tele-critical care. More than 20% of US adult ICU beds and 1 in 8 adult ICU patients are monitored by a 24/7 continuous demand model powered by the eICU Program, which combines A/V technology, predictive analytics, data visualization and advanced reporting capabilities. The core of this program is Philips eCareManager software, which delivers need-to-know information to caregivers, empowering them to care for the patients in a more proactive manner.
Philips tele-critical care platforms are available around the globe with clinical informatics applications supporting bedside, unit and virtual care delivery models. For more information on how Philips is addressing the Coronavirus globally: Philips centralized COVID-19 hub.
November 19, 2024 
