It’s been quite a busy week for Philips, one of the world’s leaders in health technology. The company announced several new partnerships this week that will look to push a variety of new technologies and digital platforms forward, as the company aims to spread its reach in the areas of oncology, radiology, and diagnostic imaging.
In the span of just a few days, Philips announced a new partnership with 3D Systems and Stratasys to advance 3-D modeling and printing systems, extended its partnership with Banner Health in preparation of a new analytics platform, and unveiled three new imaging technologies that aim to revolutionize body scanning and imaging techniques.
The week began with the announcement of a new partnership with 3D Systems and Stratasys that will bring together two global leaders in the 3-D printing industry to help advance 3-D modeling and printing techniques — a move that aims to provide radiologists with new views that can strengthen anatomical knowledge and improve patient care.
Philips hopes that the new partnership will help their customers virtually connect to a variety of new technologies from both 3D Systems and Stratasys to provide new three dimensional models that can enhance the clinical impact and help deliver more personalized treatment options.
In a related press release, Philips also unveiled its new IntelliSpace Portal 10, the latest edition of its advanced visualization and quantification platform. The new technology comes with a focus on oncology to provide radiologists with an improved set of applications, including access to 3-D modeling and printing applications born from the company’s new partnership with 3D Systems and Stratasys.
The new platform is the first of its kind to feature an embedded 3-D modeling application for creating and exporting 3-D models into clinical workflow. Philips said this new technology will enhance diagnostic capabilities, provide support for cutting-edge imaging techniques, simplify data and insight gathering, and utilize new machine learning applications that can learn from prior usage to help improve patient care.
Philips also said it will extend its partnership with Banner Health, an Arizona-based clinic where Philips has been working to transform clinical practices in radiology through the adoption of its PerformanceBridge practice. PerformanceBridge is a portfolio of software and services the company has been rolling out to assist radiology departments and improve patient care.
With the PerformanceBridge practice, the company hopes to help Banner Health develop simple solutions that can address a range of different areas for improvement. The project is scheduled to get off the ground in radiology departments across 16 different sites in Arizona before expanding to 12 new radiology departments in five other states.
As if these developments weren’t enough, the company also announced the debut of two new imaging technologies as well. As the company prepares to expand its reach in the realm of oncology and diagnostics, Philips unveiled its new I Qon Elite Spectral CT scanner on Monday, a new configuration of the world’s first spectral detector-based CT scanner. The new scanner comes with a range of features that will help physicians deliver more confident patient diagnoses in the first scan, providing a new level of certainty for oncology clinicians and patients.
The company followed that announcement with the unveiling of new MRI solutions at the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting in Chicago this week. Its newest MR system, known as the M R Prodiva 1.5T, aims to provide enhanced clinical performance by reducing exam times through a simplified guided patient setup. The new imaging system even hopes to improve patient comfort during the exam through customized visual themes, reducing acoustic noise, and even providing examination instructions.
Moving forward, it’s clear Philips intends to be a major player in the field of radiology, oncology, and diagnostic imaging, and the partnerships announced this week signal its long-term investment in these industries.
