Proactive Management System Improves Healthcare Efficiencies

A new intuitive web-based application provides enhanced visibility of patient monitoring devices and network equipment to help improve biomedical and information technology (IT) productivity.

The Royal Philips (Philips; Amsterdam, The Netherlands) FocusPoint platform is designed to provide operational alerts and statistical data to support the entire health ecosystem, from the IT department to the biomedical staff, allowing providers to increase system uptime and reduce costs associated with maintaining and servicing Philips medical devices, applications, and networks. Services include inventory and system health, alerts and key performance indicators, system reports and auditing, and capacity planning to help determine if there is a need to expand network infrastructure.

FocusPoint acts as a central node for the provider, showing which solutions are installed and running on the customer's network. For support extending beyond the hospital walls, Philips also offers a dedicated team to support the health system on-site, as well as remotely, in order to help the healthcare provider leverage the information from FocusPoint and transition it into improved efficiencies. Customer-specific tailored solutions are also available for integrating Philips remote-enabled services in existing IT and biomedical systems.

FocusPoint aggregates, processes, stores, and presents inventory, statistical, and alert information for patient monitoring devices, applications, and network equipment, including IntelliVue patient monitors, PIC iX servers and surveillance systems, Smart-hopping wireless infrastructure, IntelliVue MX and MP series monitors (including telemetry), and Philips supplied routers, switches, and firewalls. All data is accessible via an intuitive web-based graphical user interface (GUI) or by interfacing FocusPoint with the network management system.

“With the constantly growing amount of medical equipment in our customers' health systems, it can be challenging for staff to keep track of required equipment maintenance and pinpoint minor operational issues before bigger problems arise,” said Felix Baader, business leader of monitoring and analytics at Philips. “Designed with an intuitive, web-based interface, FocusPoint gives providers operational insight through an easy-to-use dashboard that unifies data from Philips medical devices to help pinpoint problems and deliver actionable insights to intervene quickly.”

Depending on the size of a health system, there can be hundreds to thousands of medical devices and network equipment, with little visibility into the back-end of multiple systems. As a result providers lack near real-time performance metrics and troubleshooting capabilities. As the shift toward value-based care continues, major healthcare systems are choosing to incorporate IT solutions into their hospital staff's workflow to help support better use of resources, improve outcomes, and optimize care.