Philips launched a new initiative to help healthcare providers transform their standard hospital rooms into connected critical care suites, allowing them to quickly increase capacity when facing surges of COVID-19 cases or in response to other natural disasters and pandemics.
The company’s rapid equipment deployment kits include fully configured ICU monitors and vital sign measurement servers, pre-packed into sturdy, transportable containers. According to Philips, the kits can connect 20 beds to a central patient monitoring station and be up and running in an average of five hours.
“The current health crisis has demonstrated a clear need for us to deliver innovative solutions to our customers that provide a complete critical care monitoring solution with all of the equipment they require on demand,” said Peter Ziese, general manager of monitoring analytics at Philips. “This eliminates the need to source and configure individual pieces of high-demand equipment during a crisis.”
The emergency ramp-up kits include deployment instructions, plus remote technical support from Philips, and have already been used in U.S. health systems, the company said. Meanwhile, the monitoring equipment—including MX450 displays and MMX vital sign servers—are equipped with predictive algorithms to alert care teams to deteriorating patients.
After a crisis has passed, the kits can be disinfected, repacked and stored for future emergencies, or transferred from hospital to hospital as needed.