Philips Healthcare and Salesforce announced last week their partnership to construct a connected, multi-point and collaborative data platform to benefit providers, payers and patients. The initial step is the launch later this summer of the Philips eCare Coordinator app for healthcare providers and a patient-centered Philips eCare Companion app, which will uptake data from Philips Healthcare medical devices into a variation on the Salesforce1 cloud platform. What’s emphasized in the releases and information from media sources is that it will be designed as an open platform for other device and software providers. (Data security problems down the line are anyone’s guess.) While Philips’ global CEO was part of the announcement and it’s expected that Philips will be lead dog for this, the only two customers mentioned were US and Salesforce’s. There were also few details on how clinical staff would access and use the data.
Cui bono from this? Philips of course, which of late has been lagging in its traditional areas of high-end devices such as imaging in US and EU sales (FT) and faces fierce competition from multiple competitors in HIT against players such as Siemens, Epic (partnering with Apple, TTA 3 June), McKesson, Cerner and GE. Philips also has a limited footprint in consumer wellness devices (the Lifeline PERS series) but less awareness of its specialized therapeutic devices for sleep apnea and COPD. What is more notable is the reference in the VentureBeat article on the accumulation of data generated by this to inform clinical decision support systems, which benefits both Philips and Salesforce. Also InformationWeek.
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