Instruments designed to improve situation aware help pilots understand the current and future state of a flight so they can better anticipate as well as react to changes. Philips recognized the need for more situational awareness in healthcare and to address it, they developed a digital patient avatar that looks remarkably like a gingerbread man.
At the AdvaMed MedTech Conference, the Healthcare IT Today team caught sight of this “gingerbread man” and were intrigued enough to find out more. Julia Strandberg, Chief Business Leader of Connected Care and Monitoring at Philips, agreed to come on-camera to provide more details.
Key Takeaways
- Visual Patient Avatar helps with patient monitoring and safety. Philips’ new avatar, shaped like a gingerbread man, helps improve situational awareness and reduces cognitive load while monitor patients.
- Device mobility eliminates gaps in monitoring. Patients need to be monitored in patient rooms, in transit between care settings, and event at home. Monitoring solutions need to be mobile to accommodate these situations and avoid gaps.
- Cybersecurity needed for care-at-home. Cybersecurity for medical devices is paramount for the care-at-home setting which lacks the security infrastructure of a hospital. Manufacturers need to account for this in the design of their monitoring technologies.
Gingerbread Innovation
One of Philips’ recent breakthroughs is the Visual Patient Avatar, an AI-powered interface that provides a holistic, real-time representation of a patient’s condition. This intuitive tool reduces cognitive load by presenting critical patient data visually, helping clinicians make faster, more informed decisions.
“When the patient is cold, the avatar can turn blue,” explained Strandberg. “Or when their pulse is racing, you can see the heart on the avatar pumping more.”
According to Standberg and to Joyce De Ala, Clinical Architect at Philips (who was kind enough to give a walkthrough of the Philips platform), the idea for the avatar came from two anesthesiologists who were also pilots.
“They got the idea from the airplane cockpit,” recalled De Ala. “Pilots monitor so many different dials and instruments. It can take them a while to build a picture of the conditions of the aircraft and the environment.”
Having a single instrument that consolidates the most critical information in an intuitive way, drastically reduces the amount of time and mental energy required to assess the current situation. On most commercial aircraft, this is the job of the Primary Flight Display which shows airspeed, altitude, pitch, thrust, heading and other critical information. A pilot can look at that one display and get an idea of whether everything is normal or whether further investigation or intervention is needed.
The Philips “gingerbread” avatar does the same for doctors and nurses monitoring patients. With a quick glance, they can see if action is needed. This decreases cognitive load and improves patient safety.
Integrated, Connected, and Open Patient Monitoring
The days of using multiple devices from different vendors that simply beep when something is wrong are thankfully coming to an end. Health systems today want simplified patient monitoring that is smart, connected, and tightly integrated, preferably from a single vendor.
That is Strandberg’s vision.
“Patient monitoring meant a lot of hardware, which created gaps in the flow of care,” she explained. “Now, we are reimagining care delivery through digital transformation, where tools like clinical decision support, AI, data integration and workflow optimization play leading roles.”
Strandberg pointed to Philips’ latest central monitoring unit, the PIC iX v4.3 Patient Information Center (PIC iX), which integrates data from various sources, including non-Philips devices, into a cohesive and open ecosystem as an example of the company’s direction. The PIC iX system ensures continuity of care because the unit can physically be moved with the patient – to their room at the hospital, to the operating room, and even to their home. Philips has added this mobility because it recognizes that providing care is no longer restricted to the four walls of a facility.
Strandberg noted that in-home monitoring, supported by tools like Philips’ ambulatory monitoring services, empowers clinicians to intervene earlier and improve outcomes for chronic disease management and post-acute care.
A Focus on Cybersecurity
Security remains a critical consideration as monitoring systems expand beyond the hospital. Philips embeds robust cybersecurity protocols, including military-grade encryption, into its products.
“Cybersecurity is built into our culture and software development lifecycle,” Strandberg stated. For example, Philips’ monitoring systems recently underwent rigorous testing at the DEF CON Biohacking Village and demonstrated resilience against attempted breaches. By prioritizing security, Philips is enabling a seamless flow of data between homes and healthcare providers without compromising patient trust.
By addressing challenges like clinician burnout, fragmented care, and cybersecurity, Philips is helping healthcare providers deliver high-quality, patient-centered care in manner that is aligned with the future of care – portable, safe, connected, whether the patient is a healthcare facility or at home.
Learn more about Philips at https://www.philips.com/
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发布者：Dr.Durant，转转请注明出处：https://robotalks.cn/can-gingerbread-help-improve-patient-monitoring-and-safety-philips-says-yes/
