Amsterdam-based technology company Royal Philips has signed a multi-year, strategic partnership with Phoenix-based Banner Health to use technology to improve and expand on the health system’s telehealth and population health management efforts.
Banner Health is one of the largest, nonprofit health care systems in the United States, managing 28 acute care hospitals, the Banner Health Network and Banner Medical Group, long-term care centers, outpatient surgery centers and an array of other services including family clinics, home care and hospice services, and a nursing registry. Banner Health operates in six states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming.
According to a Philips press release, the multi-year partnership with Philips is intended to further innovate and expand on Banner Health’s successful joint connected healthcare programs such as the Intensive Ambulatory Care (IAC) pilot and telehealth programs. “The two organizations will collaborate, leveraging Philips’ knowledge and research in connected care and population health management (PHM) and Banner’s deep clinical and operational insights to identify and deliver integrated solutions that are intended to improve the health of Banner’s patients. At the same time, the partnership will look to create best practices that enable Banner to improve the patient experience,” Philips officials said in the press release.
As part of the agreement, Banner and Philips will create a governance structure that will allow both organizations to identify solution delivery projects and innovative technologies that can help improve the patient experience and outcomes. Through the partnership, the organizations will focus on health management and intend to look at how the healthcare network can take a more connected approach around health spaces such as cardiology by incorporating advanced imaging and interventional technologies, genomics, digital pathology, and data analytic. In addition, it is anticipated that the partnership will evaluate innovative services and business models that may enable Banner to adopt the latest in healthcare technologies, regardless of vendor.
The agreement will also give Banner access to additional Philips solutions such as a radiology practice management solution, in order to help drive operational efficiencies in the health network’s extensive inpatient and outpatient imaging capabilities.
“We have always taken a long-term view of our business, and realized very early on that the current healthcare system was not sustainable,” Peter Fine, president and CEO of Banner Health, said in a prepared statement. “With legislation driving reform, we knew that we needed to manage population health and essentially keep people healthy and out of the system to reduce costs, while ensuring better patient outcomes.”
Banner is the latest healthcare network to sign a long-term, strategic partnership model with Philips. In less than eighteen months, Philips has signed five long-term, strategic partnerships in North America including Westchester Medical Center Health Network (15-year term), Mackenzie Health (18-year term), Marin General Hospital (15-year term), and the Medical University of South Carolina Health (8-year term).
Philips and Banner Health also announced results of a telehealth initiative, the Intensive Ambulatory Care (AIC) program, showing significant decreases in both patient healthcare costs and hospitalization rates. As part of the overall telehealth program at Banner, the IAC pilot program treats patients with complex medical situations due to multiple chronic conditions. Across the nation, these types of patients generate 50 percent of overall healthcare spend. The results of this latest cost analysis reveal that the initial benefits for Banner from Philips’ IAC program have been expanded upon, increasing the rate of improvement in reducing hospitalizations, readmissions and healthcare costs, and ultimately, improving patient outcomes overall, according to the press release.
