Why is the demand for healthcare rising?
With an ageing society and an increase in obesity, as well as in chronic diseases, demand for healthcare is rising. This is a global challenge already putting a significant strain on healthcare worldwide. By 2025, the global population over 65 will double, from the 2005 levels, to about 820 million people. In Europe, 40-50% of the population will be over 65 by 2050. Then, let’s look at chronic diseases, already the leading cause of mortality in the world, representing 60% of all deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Furthermore, the WHO says one billion people globally are currently overweight or obese – a significant contributor to chronic disease. That number will likely rise beyond 1.5 billion by 2015, and chronic disease will claim an estimated 70% of all deaths. To tackle the challenge of healthcare demand, systems must take on the challenge of caring for the ageing and those living with chronic disease.
How does this affect the supply of healthcare?
We will have a much bigger issue in controlling healthcare costs than we do today. Apart from needing an army of care givers, more hospital beds could be taken up by the chronically ill and infirm elderly. Governments cannot afford to keep putting people who need care rather than medical treatment in care facility, hospices or long-stay beds. Some patients may live with chronic conditions and need care for up to 40 years.
What is the solution?
A Swedish study on six EU countries, including the UK, said 5.5 million hospital admissions for the chronically ill could be avoided if there was a better use of home monitoring and tele-medicine. We have to apply technology and realise it is no longer about treating acute diseases – we have to deal with ongoing chronic diseases and consider homecare.
We want to keep people in their homes from the standpoint of cost, and it is also a place where people want to be cared for. They want to stay in their homes as long as they possibly can.
So we have to figure out a way to treat these patients more effectively in the home and to keep them out of longer care situations and out of hospital. This must be in a controlled way.
What is the advantage of home care?
There are many advantages. Patients want to be at home. If you can properly care for a patient in their home it is a lot less expensive than in hospital. We must continue to make devices that are extremely easy to use, that are accurate and, using wireless technology and the internet, pass data back and forth in a secure and seamless way.
What does Philips offer on home care?
Philips offers a range of solutions for sleep disorders, respiratory care and home monitoring that are designed to keep patients healthy and at home, where they are most comfortable and the cost of healthcare is lower. For the millions of people suffering with a potentially life-threatening condition called sleep apnea, our sleep therapy systems and masks provide relief to those who repeatedly stop breathing during sleep due to an obstruction of the upper airway. Home respiratory solutions such as stationary and portable oxygen devices, ventilators and drug delivery products are designed to treat a variety of respiratory diseases while helping to increase patient mobility and quality of life.
Home monitoring products are focused on independent living and elderly issues. Using Philips Lifeline in North America, a patient wearing a device in the form of a pendant worn around the neck or a wristwatch can call for help in a medical emergency such as a fall. With the touch of a button, a signal is sent to a base station that calls a call centre, who can call someone to help.
We also offer remote monitoring and tele-monitoring solutions to patients at home, often targeted specifically at those with chronic diseases and especially coronary artery disease. This technology is intended to ensure that if the patient is starting to show a decline in certain vital signs or certain data then, as the trend starts, intervention can happen before it becomes serious. This reduces the need for re-hospitalization, which is often a very high risk for these patients when left alone.
Has Philips got anything new?
In sleep, a new intelligent sleep therapy system provides relief from sleep apnea through increased patient comfort and technology that connects the entire care team – from care providers and physicians to patients.The system enables seamless patient management to help ensure a quick, simple and cost-effective way to monitor therapy. In independent living, we have created a new cordless phone communicator which is elderly friendly with large buttons, an easy way to increase volume, simple keys and the ability to get help. This product enables fast access to help, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week while also keeping the person connected to Lifeline,family and friends.
How can we link care in hospitals and at home?
The technology does exist; the problem is getting people to use it. We have to convince healthcare systems that these are investmentsto control costs, not just additional costs. To work, the patient must find them easy to use, and take more personal responsibility for their own health.
At Philips, we are creating ways to manage the patient better so that, in the long run, the home becomes more of an extension of the doctor or hospital rather than what it is today – an almost completely isolated location.
Those who are severely ill need to be in a hospital, but those with chronic diseases or going into recovery can transition to the home. In the future, there needs to be more connection between the physicians and his/her team, and the caregivers and patient in their home. This is especially true for people living with chronic disease or an ongoing illness. This kind of communication with the patient at home allows for better management, thus avoiding the cost of another acute hospital episode.
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