US-based healthcare IT firms Royal Philips and Teladoc Health have joined hands to deliver virtual care solutions in Australia and New Zealand.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT
The two global healthcare IT firms will combine their virtual care offerings to offer hospitals and health systems a scalable end-to-end virtual care service that allows them to conduct remote patient monitoring across health facilities with limited clinical resources.
Philips' enterprise virtual care solutions leverage monitoring, machine learning and advanced analytics programming to turn disparate data into actionable insights to support clinical decisions. The company claims that this package can reduce patient's length of stay by 30%, discharge patients 15% faster and reduce patient mortality by 26%.
Teladoc Health's virtual care platform and solutions, on the other hand, includes point-of-care devices and solutions that integrate with existing systems and workflows, enabling hospitals to extend their reach to more care sites and impact health and satisfaction outcomes.
In addition, "new patient insights derived from the virtual care models will ensure practitioners are able to deliver patients improved access to specialist care regardless of time or location," according to a press release.
WHY IT MATTERS
Health networks across Australia and New Zealand are dealing with overwhelmed emergency departments, ICU capacity and backlogs of elective surgery, causing long waiting times for patients.
Given this, Philips and Teladoc are extending their virtual care solutions with the aim of enhancing patient access to healthcare services, as well as improving clinician experience and patient health outcomes, while reducing the overall cost of care. As of September, these integrated solutions have been made available for public and private health networks in ANZ.
THE LARGER TREND
Early in the year, Teladoc started piloting its virtual primary care programme called Teladoc Primary 360 with large employer health plan clients. In January, the company said it will be rolling out the package in "more commercial populations" throughout 2021.
Teladoc has also partnered with Microsoft to offer hospitals and health systems its Solo platform via Teams. This integrated feature, which is reported to become available early next year, will provide clinicians access to clinical data within their EHR system without leaving the Teams communication platform.
In other news, Philips has added two new products to its HealthSuite digital platform: one is the patient flow feature that helps clinicians manage patients across the care spectrum, and the other is an acute telehealth product that assists health systems to manage informatics associated with virtual care.
ON THE RECORD
"Philips and Teladoc Health will be a powerful combination for health systems in Australia and New Zealand. Together we will deliver what hospitals and health systems want: integrated, enterprise solutions that make the full breadth of virtual care available to their physicians and patients. Our collaboration will deliver a more seamless, unified experience for clinicians that makes healthcare better, leveraging leading data, analytics and expertise from both companies," said Darren Reynolds, managing director of Teladoc Health ANZ.
"This partnership with Teladoc strengthens our existing capability through the delivery and performance of best practice programs found at some of the top academic medical institutions and government health systems in the world. We are confident this comprehensive offering will better serve our health systems in Australia and New Zealand," Shehaan Fernando, regional director of Virtual Care at Royal Philips, also commented.
