Royal Philips has announced its telehealth apps eCareCoordinator and eCareCompanion have received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A part of Philips Hospital to Home’s suite of telehealth programs, eCareCoordinator and eCareCompanion are focused on patient care within the home and are the first clinical applications to be available through the cloud-based digital health platform, which Philips announced in collaboration with Salesforce.com earlier this summer. The Philips eCareCoordinator and eCareCompanion applications will be demonstrated live at the upcoming Dreamforce conference in San Francisco on October 13-16.
Connecting care from hospital to home, Philips healthcare and consumer offerings span the health continuum, including healthy living, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, recovery and home care. Both eCare Coordinator and eCare Companion are part of the Philips Transition to Ambulatory Care (eTrAC) program, a clinical program whose goal is to help healthcare providers reduce readmissions and lower healthcare costs by focusing on effective chronic care management within the home. By connecting clinicians and patients transitioning from the hospital to ambulatory care, Philips enables clinicians to monitor patients remotely and prioritize them for intervention.
eCareCoordinator Overview
eCareCoordinator supports population health management by providing clinicians with a daily review of each of their patients, allowing them to prioritize patients and adjust care plans or intervene as needed. The application gives clinicians real-time access to both objective health data – like vital signs, blood pressure and weight – as well as subjective responses collected via health questionnaires and other communication with the care team about the patient’s status.
eCareCompanion Overview
The eCareCompanion application serves as the patient portal, driving patient engagement and self-management. The personalized application is accessed via a tablet, and allows patients to answer questions about their health and enter requested measurements to stay connected with their care teams. Its ability to connect with medical devices, such as a weight scale, oximeter, blood pressure meter and medicine dispenser, enables a deeper insight into patient health. The application also proactively reminds them of pre-assigned health tasks, like taking medications, to encourage adherence and better outcomes.
The two applications will support new at-home care models like the program being piloted at Banner Health, a pioneer accountable care organization in Arizona, USA. Philips will be launching a similar program with Henry Ford Health System, one of the nation’s leading integrated health systems based in Michigan, USA.
“As our healthcare ecosystem evolves to meet the needs of a rapidly aging population while facing financial realities, we’re seeing that digital healthcare can help us improve patient care and their quality of life,” said Dr. Hargobind Khurana, Medical Director of Banner Telehealth. “We’re eager to incorporate these two new applications as part of our telehealth program to our patients and clinicians to facilitate better recovery at home.”
