Dutch giant Philips has introduced a virtual care management portfolio to offer a comprehensive approach to telehealth for patients, providers and payers.

It demonstrates proven results in improving patient engagement and health outcomes, and lowering cost of care while enabling workflow efficiencies.

The aim is to help health systems, providers, payers and employer groups motivate and connect with patients from virtually anywhere. It can help reduce pressure on hospital staff by decreasing emergency department visits, as well as reducing the cost of care through better management of chronic disease.

Every year, chronic condition management represents 90% of healthcare expenditures in the USA. Philips’ condition-specific protocols now include diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, chronic kidney disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), as well as gestational programmes for diabetes and hypertension. These protocols combine with connected devices and engagement tools on a secure, interoperable cloud-based platform to deliver data and actionable insights that can enable timely intervention and workflow efficiencies.

Licensed clinical professionals offer monitoring and personalised health coaching; Philips’ expert-led professional services round out the all-inclusive offering to help users plan, customise, implement, activate and sustain each programme.

“Virtual care is paving the way to meaningfully reduce the cost of care through fewer hospitalisations and emergency department visits,” said Nick Wilson, general manager at Philips. “Care providers and health systems today are often short on time and resources, accelerating the need to find new ways to gain visibility into patients’ health amid an overwhelming variety of options. For patients, the opportunity to understand and take proactive control of their health can potentially lead to improved outcomes.”

The virtual care programme goes beyond traditional remote patient management with scalable options and services that help foster patient engagement, empower healthier behaviour, expand access to care, improve outcomes and lower healthcare costs. Recent studies using these products and services saw a 38% average reduction in emergency department visits.

Patients experienced an average HbA1c, or blood glucose, reduction of 3.06%. Results suggest potential savings of $3086 annual claims per patient or member and fewer 30- and 90-day hospitalisations compared with usual care.

The configurable platform offers health systems, providers, payers and employer groups the ability to customise their programme in a way that shapes and scales with their evolving needs. Philips’ legacy of clinical expertise brings a comprehensive approach to an otherwise fragmented virtual care market by working alongside users to help them centralise and customise their virtual care management programme, optimise workflow and improve outcomes.