Home Healthcare
Overburdened hospitals with limited resources and challenging financial circumstances will be hard pressed to care effectively for the growing numbers of long-term patients with chronic ailments such as sleep disorders and heart disease. New solutions must be found. Addressing the growing demographic need for care in the home, we provide both equipment – for sleep-disordered breathing, home respiratory care and respiratory drug delivery – and home monitoring services to support cardiac and elderly care. We work together with our clinical provider customers to improve the quality of life for at-risk individuals in the home through better awareness, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring and management of their conditions.   With an estimated 80% of sleep apnea sufferers still undiagnosed, we see excellent opportunities to improve patient health and reduce the cost of healthcare. Lack of sleep has a significant impact on health and well-being and has been associated with diminished cognitive performance and vigilance, weight gain, insulin resistance (diabetes), increased incidence of heart attacks, decreased immune function and shorter life expectancy. Drawing upon our home healthcare strengths and scientific knowledge in the field of sleep, as well as our access to professional channels, we are uniquely positioned to address this near-epidemic problem with scientifically based sleep management solutions. New sleep therapy platformOur Philips Respironics Sleep Therapy System uses advanced intelligence to deliver optimum care while making patient management easier for our provider customers. Customer input was a key element in the development of this new platform, delivering an even higher level of sophistication in sleep therapy for Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Through advances in software algorithms, humidification management and the marriage of proven technologies, the Sleep Therapy System thinks for itself, carefully monitoring patients and recognizing when therapy needs are changing.
  More and more patients require oxygen, ventilation or nebulization therapy at home. What better example of our health and well-being focus than simply helping them to breathe? Chronic diseases account for 70% of all deaths in the US and consume 75% of US healthcare expenditure. Worldwide, they represent 60% of all deaths, and the percentage is growing as developing nations begin to develop greater incidences of ‘western’ diseases. In the home respiratory market there is an increased incidence of chronic diseases like COPD, asthma, etc., resulting in more patients requiring dedicated respiratory treatments at home. Making life more livableWe enjoy market leadership in home respiratory care, including oxygen-generation products for the ambulatory patient, home ventilation and airway clearance devices. Solutions like our new Trilogy100 portable at-home life-support ventilator are designed to be simple to use and live with, as well as providing clinically effective therapy. Patients who use them often experience greater freedom, mobility and independence in their daily lives. When developing the Trilogy100 ventilator, we focused on areas for clinicians and caregivers that are most important in delivering home respiratory care – ease of use, versatility and portability. The integration of the three makes Trilogy100 a significant advancement in home respiratory care.
  With demand for care outgrowing the number of healthcare practitioners, we are partnering in innovation to help patients better manage their health at home. Globally, fewer care professionals are having to handle more patients, in less time and at a lower cost. In 2009, Philips and Achmea Health, the Netherlands’ largest healthcare insurer, signed a five-year agreement to cooperate on the development of innovative care solutions that will enable chronic disease sufferers to manage their health at home, reducing the need for hospital stays. Insight-based solutions“The insights of patients and healthcare professionals captured by Achmea Health are an important tool for us in our efforts to develop solutions that genuinely meet people’s needs,” commented Walter van Kuijen, General Manager Home Monitoring, Philips Healthcare. “This will not only benefit patients: by reducing the number of hospital stays and shortening those that do take place, the burden on the healthcare system can also be reduced. In the long term we believe that this approach will enable us to reduce the costs of health insurance for our customers,” added Roelof Konterman, Chairman of the Board of Management of Achmea Health.
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