Philips, a global leader in health technology, announced that it is expanding its remote clinical collaboration and virtual training offerings across its portfolio, building on the IIT (Innovative Imaging Technologies) Reacts collaborative platform. IIT Reacts a wholly-owned Philips subsidiary and part of Philips’ Ultrasound business. Leveraging innovative technologies, such as augmented reality, for remote virtual guidance, supervision and training, the platform claims to provide interactive tools designed to meet the multi-faceted collaborative needs of healthcare professionals and patients.
“It is vital that we continue to advance our offering to help customers increase first-time-right diagnoses, by integrating innovations and technology that alleviate our customers’ pain points and streamline workflows,” said Bich Le, business leader Ultrasound at Philips. “With Reacts’ unique interactive tools, we can offer secure expert solutions and the training and support needed for physicians to make definitive diagnostic decisions effectively and efficiently. This will enable us to accelerate our commitment to the patients we serve today and expand access to imaging for new users and new use cases.”
According to the press statement, the Reacts platform has already been deployed in more than 80 countries, across various disciplines in both clinical and educational settings. It allows healthcare professionals to interact remotely and dynamically in a wide range of applications, from teleconsultations, secure messaging, remote wound care and tele-ultrasound, to interactive tele surgical assistance and remote procedure supervision.
“Reacts addresses the clear and pressing need for secure remote collaboration and communication between healthcare providers and patients,” said Yanick Beaulieu, head of Clinical Science for Philips Ultrasound. “By deploying this interactive collaboration platform across Philips’ health technology solutions, we can change patient care models, expand telehealth capabilities, and accelerate technological developments in virtual collaboration globally.”
Since 2018, Reacts is integrated with the Philips’ Lumify point-of-care ultrasound solution, enabling users to share the live ultrasound stream from a Lumify device with a remote colleague on a mobile device, tablet, or computer. This allows both parties to simultaneously view the live ultrasound image and the webcam video stream and provide real-time feedback. Lumify with Reacts has come to be a valuable tool for educational institutions, medical students and resident clinicians, EMS providers with long transit times, disaster relief providers, hospitals with satellite clinics, and clinicians seeking peer-to-peer collaboration for virtual guidance and training.
Lumify with Reacts can provide valuable diagnostic insight for front-line care providers to manage Covid-19-related lung and cardiac complications. Moreover, by enabling remote communication, Reacts reduces the need for physical interaction and can help minimize the risk of virus transmission for medical teams. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Philips has also successfully piloted Reacts to provide case support during image-guided therapy procedures, remotely assisting clinicians to diagnose and treat patients with coronary artery disease and other cardiovascular diseases. According to the press statement, Philips will now further expand Reacts across its Diagnosis and Treatment portfolio.
