Philips Launches New IntelliSpace Portfolio Offering Clinical Decision Support for Pediatric Cardiovascular Care

February 11–15, the 2019 HIMSS Global Conference & Exhibition (hereinafter referred to as HIMSS19) was held in Orlando, Florida, USA. As one of the most influential large-scale exhibitions in the global healthcare information technology industry, it attracted 45,000 healthcare IT professionals, clinicians, healthcare administrators, government policymakers, and corporate representatives from more than 90 countries around the world.

Technology is a key driver propelling the development of the healthcare industry. As a health IT giant, Royal Philips launched its IntelliSpace suite of healthcare solutions at the HIMSS19 conference, including IntelliSpace Epidemiology and version 4.1 of IntelliSpace Cardiovascular. These innovations aim to leverage medical technology to address infection control challenges and improve the treatment of pediatric cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.

Among these, IntelliSpace Epidemiology is a clinical decision support system that integrates clinical informatics with genomic sequencing data of pathogens, designed to effectively assist infection prevention and control teams in identifying transmission events. This system optimizes hospital-based procedures for detecting healthcare-associated infections.

Philips stated that healthcare-associated infections pose a serious threat to patient safety, with the annual mortality rate from such infections in the United States exceeding that of breast and prostate cancer. It is reported that approximately 2 million people acquire infections during hospitalization each year, resulting in an estimated $35 billion in losses to the U.S. healthcare system.

Philips believes that hospitals lacking automation technology and a central repository for infection data may struggle to detect infections in a timely manner, thereby leading to the spread of infections. The Smart Space Epidemiology System integrates infected areas (such as patients, clinicians, locations, or equipment) with clinical informatics and bacterial genomic information, thereby providing hospitals with infection-related insights.

The system can display information relevant to clinicians’ workflows on the dashboard. Philips states that this helps infection prevention and control teams identify early outbreaks in hospitals, enabling timely intervention to curb transmission, thereby improving the experience for patients and hospital staff, enhancing health outcomes, and reducing care costs.

IntelliSpace Epidemiology is a comprehensive system that integrates clinical informatics, bioinformatics, and genomic sequencing data. Powered by Philips HealthSuite, the system leverages deep learning and clinical analytics to perform genetic fingerprinting of pathogens, enabling rapid tracking of infection sources and current transmission patterns.

In addition, Philips has launched version 4.1 of IntelliSpace Cardiovascular, a next-generation cardiovascular image and information management system. In recognition of the importance and uniqueness of the pediatric care setting, this latest version optimizes existing functionalities to better serve pediatric patients with cardiovascular conditions.

Supported by the new system, clinicians can complete their work more efficiently. Meanwhile, the system integrates with another Philips healthcare application, Philips Forcare, enabling patient data sharing between healthcare systems and hospitals. IntelliSpace Cardiovascular enhances data security and provides seamless access to other Philips software tools such as QLAB and TOMTEC.

Generally, to obtain a comprehensive view of a patient’s condition, clinicians need to search for specific information, such as previous test results, across multiple procedures, systems, and healthcare institutions. IntelliSpace Cardiovascular version 4.1 streamlines workflows and enhances operational performance by consolidating patient information into a single system. This provides clinicians with a holistic view, facilitating more definitive decision-making, while also improving the experience for both patients and hospital staff, promoting better patient health outcomes, and reducing healthcare costs.

In addition to the existing web-based adult stress echocardiography reporting functionality, version 4.1 of IntelliSpace Cardiovascular introduces a web-based pediatric module, offering a comprehensive echocardiography solution that aggregates data into a single system. The pediatric module also includes a new z-score software package, enabling physicians to plot serial measurements in pediatric cardiology practice.

(Compiled by Cheng Xiaoqin)