Philips to introduce India's first virtual ICU soon

Patients admitted to intensive care units (ICU) at hospitals in smaller towns and villages might soon get a chance to avail of top-class healthcare technologies and receive treatment from specialists in metros.

Philips Electronics India is set to come up with the country’s first virtual ICU soon. The company, which plans to revolutionise the critical care segment, is already in talks with major multi-specialty tertiary care hospital groups to introduce a technology called eICU within a year.

“Like the monitoring process in a traffic control room, an eICU monitors patients in different hospitals 24x7 and makes key interventions at the right time. The technology connects several hospitals’ ICUs to a big specialist ICU where critical care specialists monitor and review patients through online data connected from patient monitors and live images of the patient’s condition. We are in talks with multi-specialty tertiary care hospitals to implement the technology in India,” said Krishna Kumar, vice president and business head of Philips Healthcare.

According to the firm, through this technology doctors can centrally monitor patients in multiple ICUs, which would help hospital groups to deal with the talent shortage in the sector.

“It will take note of patient parameters like blood pressure and heartbeat and even a slight variation in it will alert the expert in the virtual ICU. With a touch screen, we can pull out the patient’s references,” he said.

Regarding the healthcare majors with whom the company is in talks with and the cost of the project, he said, “I can’t reveal the names of the hospital groups now. In the next 6-12 months, we will be able to come up with some more details. However, the cost of each eICU will start from Rs 2 crore and will increase depending on the number of ICUs to be interconnected.”

Healthcare business contributes to about 40 per cent of Philips’ global revenues. In 2010, the company had posted 43 per cent growth in this category in India.

Philips also leads the critical care segment in India, with a 52 per cent share. Though telemedicine is already a part of the country’s healthcare, according to the company it is only restricted to consultations and visual examination of patients and eICUs are going to boost the concept of telemedicine further.