The Future of Image Guided Therapy is Here: Introducing Philips Azurion

Today more than ever, first-time-right imaging is key.

As a leader in the field of interventional imaging for almost a century, our vision at Philips is to provide seamlessly integrated solutions that advance minimally invasive procedures by helping physicians to decide, guide, treat and confirm the right therapy for every patient.

With the healthcare landscape rapidly changing, our industry has molded a new environment for image guided therapy. Market trends such as cost efficient care delivery, increasing demand for complex procedures and metric driven outcomes are transforming the way care should be delivered.

These changes and challenges have prompted us to question how Philips can support healthcare professionals to meet the evolving needs of patients and clinicians, while also ensuring a sustainable healthcare industry.

Aligning with these industry changes, Philips has launched Azurion: our next generation image guided therapy platform. Azurion forms the new core of our integrated solutions portfolio for the fast-growing image guided therapy market.

A result of a seven-year development program conducted in close collaboration between leading clinicians worldwide and hundreds of Philips developers, engineers and designers, Azurion is an innovative image-guided therapy platform that is changing the face of image guided therapy.

Philips’ Azurion allows clinicians to easily and confidently perform a wide range of routine and complex procedures, helping them to optimise interventional lab performance, improve clinical workflow, and provide superior care for patients.

Optimised interventional lab performance

Over the last 20 years, the image guided therapy market has dramatically transformed. Interventionalists are now expected to do more with less. A growing and ageing population partnered with global shifts in lifestyle mean that the number and complexity of image guided procedures carried out in interventional labs has evolved enormously.

At Philips, we have recognised that it is essential for technology to evolve at the same pace if it is to continue to support the highest level of clinical performance. Integrating more than 1,000 components, Azurion ensures that image guided therapy performance is optimised in speed, accuracy and precision.

During minimally invasive procedures, clinicians cannot directly see the organs they are working on; the effective imaging, measurement and navigation technologies — which form the foundation of Azurion — are key to guiding accurate and effective interventional procedures.

By delivering high image quality at ultra-low X-ray dose, real-time image processing on multiple work spots within the interventional lab, and pre-programmable routine tasks and user settings, Azurion supports clinicians to deliver treatment quickly, efficiently, with reliable precision, and with meaningful and accessible data to inform learnings, reporting and future recommendations.

Improved clinical workflow

In line with key industry challenges, Azurion has been designed to control costs and improve clinical workflow, while raising standards of care.

Importantly, Azurion is equipped with new workflow options and performance dashboards. The platform enables parallel work across the care team; allowing clinicians to complete tasks simultaneously in the interventional lab, saving valuable time without compromising quality of care.

Azurion ProcedureCards have been developed to help minimise preparation errors and improve workflow efficiency, featuring pre-programmable routine tasks and user preferences. This assists in further reducing procedure time, therefore improving clinical workflow and cost efficiency.ⁱ

In recent years, Philips has pioneered a steady stream of innovations in planning and navigation software for areas such as vascular surgery (e.g. VesselNavigator), interventional cardiology (e.g. EchoNavigator), interventional oncology (e.g. EmboGuide), and interventional neuroradiology (e.g. AneurysmFlow). All these advanced interventional tools integrate seamlessly into the Azurion platform, again supporting optimised clinical workflow.

Superior patient care

First-time-right imaging is absolutely key in today’s healthcare environment. The need to repeat even one scan can put clinicians and patients behind schedule; creating delays, increasing staff overtime and causing patient discomfort.

At Philips, we saw the fast growth of minimally-invasive therapies, such as the catheter-based treatment of certain tumours, aneurysms and defective heart valves, as a key opportunity to evolve patient care in the interventional space. This opportunity is a key pillar in the development of Azurion.

In addition to reduced patient trauma and shorter recovery times, these minimally-invasive procedures also have the benefit of allowing treatment options for patients who would not be able to withstand the trauma of open surgery.

The technology used in Azurion was systematically developed by engineers in collaboration with clinicians to support the evolution of the front line of patient care.

The result of a seven-year collaborative development program, the Philips Azurion image guided therapy platform cements our commitment to supporting the healthcare industry through pioneering solutions.

Philips innovations continue to respond to industry challenges, and we are proud to see Azurion come to life in such a critical space within the healthcare industry.

ⁱ https://www.usa.philips.com/healthcare/resources/landing/azurion