Dutch giant Philips is collaborating with Colorado-based BioIntelliSense to enhance remote patient monitoring for at-risk patients from the hospital to the home.
 
Philips has integrated the BioIntelliSense FDA-cleared BioSticker sensor as part of its remote patient monitoring (RPM) for patients outside the hospital. Multi-parameter sensors aid monitoring across multiple chronic conditions with medical-grade vital signs for physicians to track core symptoms remotely, including for Covid-19.
 
BioIntelliSense is a continuous health monitoring and clinical intelligence company. Philips has integrates its BioSticker medical device into its RPM offering to help monitor at-risk patients. With the addition of multi-parameter sensors, Philips RPM products can enhance how clinicians monitor patients living with chronic conditions including diabetes, cancer and congestive heart failure in their homes with passive monitoring of key vital signs, physiological biometrics and symptomatic events.
 
This is done via a discreet wearable patch for monitoring up to 30 days.
 
RPM and telehealth-enabled clinical programmes provide care teams with a sustainable and scalable way to manage patient populations with chronic or complex conditions at home, and play a role in supporting care for Covid-19 patients who do not require hospitalisation.
 
By regularly transmitting patient data that can provide critical insights into a patient’s condition, the collaboration will empower care teams in the USA with a more holistic patient view and the ability to intervene earlier before adverse events occur. With single-use sensors and patient-owned technology supporting remote monitoring, care teams can also help reduce the need for clinicians and patients to interact in person.
 
“With more patients interacting with their doctors from home and more hospitals developing strategies to virtually engage with their patients, remote patient monitoring is now, more than ever, an essential tool,” said Roy Jakobs, a member of the executive committee at Philips. “Building on Philips’ global leadership in patient monitoring, which includes an extensive suite of advanced monitoring platforms and sensors, this is the latest example of our capability to allow more seamless, cloud-based data collection across multiple settings from the home to the hospital and back into the home. Our clinically differentiated and leading AI-powered technology quantify patient data into relevant actionable insights to help detect deterioration trends and support care interventions, all while outside the walls of the hospital.”
 
The BioSticker is a single-use, FDA-cleared 510k class II wearable medical device to enable at-home continuous passive monitoring with minute level data across a broad set of vital signs, physiological biometrics and symptomatic events – skin temperature, resting heart rate, resting respiratory rate, body position, activity levels and cough frequency – on a single device for 30 days.
 
Symptoms, including those directly associated with Covid-19 such as temperature and respiratory rate, can be remotely monitored in confirmed cases of coronavirus and also for those patients not sick enough to be hospitalised, or those suspected of having Covid-19. In addition to Covid-19, the BioSticker device will help transform the way clinicians monitor and manage patients living with chronic conditions from the home.
 
“Multi-parameter sensors are the natural next phase for remote monitoring, especially at a time when more patients are engaging with their physicians from home,” said James Mault, chief executive officer of BioIntelliSense. “Clinicians need medical grade monitoring and algorithmic clinical insights for Covid-19 exposure, symptoms and management. Accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis, the practice of medicine has been irreversibly enlightened as to the safety and efficacy of virtual care. Philips is a demonstrated leader in remote patient monitoring, and we look forward to BioIntelliSense’s technology playing an integral role in simplifying and enhancing outcomes for patients and their doctors.”
 
Healthcare Highways, a provider of health plans, provider networks, pharmacy benefit management, population health management and benefit plan administration, is the first to use the BioSticker sensor as a part of Philips’ RPM programme in the USA. Out of the seven programmes that will be deployed with Healthcare Highways, one will focus specifically on monitoring patients with Covid-19.
 
The remaining six will focus on conditions across the acuity spectrum, including patients with congestive heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, total joint replacement, cancer and asthma. The programme will help Healthcare Highways improve insights to patient health status across its provider network.
 
“Healthcare Highways was built on the idea of delivering measurable value and access to quality care to our members,” said Creagh Milford, chief medical officer of Healthcare Highways. “We work in partnership with our providers to innovate on the care model, and look at remote patient monitoring as the next frontier of how providers will connect with patients. Covid-19 has underscored the need for proactive care management. Resources are strained and, by integrating an RPM programme with biosensor technology, we’ll be able to drive further value for our unique member base, providers and employers to establish a new way of care delivery.”
 
Philips’ remote patient monitoring offerings are part of the company’s broader population health management portfolio, which provides a proactive healthcare delivery strategy to connect clinicians, providers and patients for on-going care. By combining technology and data-driven population management with clinical expertise and a programmatic approach, Philips supports the delivery of telehealth services for programmes in and out of the hospital to provide connected, patient-centred care across the health continuum.