The hospitals of tomorrow

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As a result of many healthcare innovations over recent years, hospitals have been modernised to such an extent that pioneering new products and digital advances are helping to improve people’s lives far beyond what many had anticipated.

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With these next-generation advances in healthcare innovation, however, hospital efficiency becomes even more important. Applied technology that is caring, impactful and delivers meaningful benefits must both make a difference to people’s lives and work in tandem with budgetary concerns. That is the essence of a healthcare revolution.
The big challenge, therefore, is to meet the growing demands of and for care, and still keep health services solvent. One approach seeks to move away from silo models of service provision towards the development of well-integrated healthcare services. Sceptics, however, have observed that up to now efforts to do this have really involved little more than the transfer of resources from one silo to another.
But things are changing for the better and healthcare innovations that focus on costs and efficiency have the ability to revolutionise the system.
For many years, acute care hospitals have struggled to keep up with the explosion in healthcare innovations and the data they carry. While some healthcare providers have leapfrogged using information and communications technology (ICT) to manage and monitor clinical data, they have been the exceptions rather than the rule. Within a decade such limitations based on ICT access will be distant memories.
Furthermore, the effective and efficient use of this data will help to reduce costs of service provision, to break down barriers between clinical specialties and service providers, to improve transparency for patients, and to deliver a more holistic patient experience. Inevitably, the slowest part of this change will be cultural.
Despite the rapid pace of clinical advances, traditional clinical structures have been slow to evolve, but driven by the stick of budgetary expediency and the enticing carrot of exciting new ways of delivering improved services, healthcare innovation can inspire change.
If big data and cheaper ICT are going to be the engines of change, how will this be experienced on the ground, within hospitals? How will patients’ benefit and hospital efficiency be transformed? A number of trends are already emerging that will enable real-time collaboration between clinicians and patients to improve outcomes while at the same time lowering costs.
For instance, using high-tech procedures that integrate multiple tools and technologies, clinicians will treat complex problems in patient-oriented ways that reduce ‘competition’ between existing clinical disciplines—for example, between cardiac surgeons and interventional cardiologists.
Healthcare innovations for telehealth capabilities will enable hospitals to discharge more patients, more quickly and to support recuperation in other settings, including their own homes. Active monitoring will ensure timely interventions, should they be necessary.
Using data to refine their focus, clinicians will be able to move away from an excessive ‘erring on the side of caution’ in diagnosis and treatment towards a targeted approach. This will encompass everything from radiation exposure for imaging to minimally invasive procedures.
Most of the people connected to tomorrow’s hospital will not be there physically. Instead, the hospital will operate as a virtual hub, delivering clinical expertise to patients through local distributed centres that cover everything from surgery to rehabilitation.
Finally, using secure connections, tomorrow’s hospital will share more information than ever before, integrating information from multiple sources. Everyone—from patients and family members to doctors, nurses and whoever is ultimately paying the bill—will have access to relevant information in real time thanks to new innovations in healthcare.
Partnering to create integrated healthcare solutions
Philips is realising this vision of the hospital of tomorrow by thinking beyond individual products. Today, we think only in terms of integrated solutions – unique combinations of hardware, software and services that Philips innovates with its partners and customers to solve specific problems. Philips is no longer just a technology company. It’s an innovative provider of integrated health technology solutions and services, transforming us from a vendor to a truly accountable partner.
With our wide-ranging expertise in clinical and hospital settings we are already teaming up with individuals, hospitals and health systems to understand their needs, provide integrated solutions, and offer performance-based business models.
We look forward to continuing to accelerate healthcare innovation and to playing a role in new partnerships, new innovations and new solutions. Digital technologies are the enabler of transformation in healthcare systems and Philips is determined to drive that transformation.
Philips has teamed up with Mount Sinai Health System in New York to create a state-of-the-art digital image repository of patient tissue samples.
The collaboration aims to advance clinical research and ultimately enable better care for complex diseases, including cancer.

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Philips partners with Stockholm County Council and Karolinska University Hospital to create a leading and highly specialised centre of healthcare excellence.
Goal is to create the hospital of the future, reducing population health costs, delivering highly specialised care and providing open innovation for a 14-year term with the possibility for Karolinska to extend.

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Banner Health and Philips teamed up to address the shift toward value-based care and increased penalties for readmissions.
By combining clinical insights, telehealth and care coordination solutions with consulting services and data analytics, Philips is helping Banner Health accelerate their transition to patient-centric, value-based care.

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For more information on Philips call 1800 251 400 or visit www.philips.com.au/healthcare