Another innovation is the cloud-based Philips Mobile Obstetrics Monitoring. This clinical software supports the first 1,000 days of life, from antenatal care through labor and delivery to postnatal care for the mother and child until the child is two years old. Mobile Obstetrics Monitoring connects patients to community health workers, midwives and doctors enabling a protocolized care path. Patients are supported with educational information and tools, caregivers through clinical decision support and a pregnancy risk score.
Philips Mobile Obstetrics Monitoring is being implemented all over the world, including deployments across India, Africa, Indonesia and Brazil. In multiple clinical trials the software demonstrated that it can radically reduce maternal mortality while improving the identification and referral of high-risk pregnancies [3].
Philips also offers a free app called Pregnancy +. It supports women throughout their pregnancy by providing proactive, personalized health information, including diet and exercise tips, labor information, and images reflective of the baby’s development.
How is Philips ensuring that it is meeting the needs of local communities?
Olesya Struk, Senior Director Group Sustainability at Philips: Partnerships and cross-sector collaboration are critical enablers to deliver and accelerate access to healthcare in low- and middle-income countries. For example, Philips teams up with private companies and NGOs in the Digital Connected Care Coalition to drive the adoption of digital healthcare in underserved communities, and we work closely with UN organizations, such as the World Bank and World Health Organization, as part of Universal Health Coverage 2030 private sector constituency.
On a project basis, we make sure to bring together complementary competencies to achieve a specific objective and create sustainable solutions. Working with governments and UNICEF, for example, Philips deployed a cloud-based Monitoring and Evaluation solution to improve equipment management in 100 health facilities across Africa, demonstrating equipment uptime improvement. Very recently, Philips Foundation and RAD-AID International announced a multi-year partnership to leverage Philips’ expertise in mobile ultrasound services to improve access to virtual care in hard-to-reach areas for 50 million people.
