5 Questions with Philips: The trends shaping the future of healthcare

It has been 130 years since Philips was founded. From humble beginnings as a business producing electric light bulbs in 1891 to a global health technology company with around 80,000 employees across 100 countries today, the company has constantly reinvented itself over the last decades to bring meaningful innovation that improves lives. The world is undergoing the most radical and transformative changes right now, as national health systems grapple with the challenges of serving an aging population while adapting to the new reality of Covid-19's continued impact. This is coupled with the pressing need for businesses to operate responsibly and sustainably.

Caroline Clarke, CEO and EVP at Philips ASEAN Pacific, shares her views on the latest trends in the healthcare industry and what hospitals of the future will look like.

What impact has Covid had on healthcare in Asia?

According to our Future Health Index 2021 study, APAC's healthcare leaders overwhelmingly (85 per cent) agree that their hospital or healthcare facility and their country's healthcare system in general (92 per cent), have shown resilience during the pandemic. Despite the disruptive impact of COVID-19, healthcare leaders in APAC are optimistic about the future - where nearly three in four are confident in the ability of their hospital or healthcare facility to deliver quality care as they look toward the future.

While Covid-19 has been a challenge for healthcare systems around the world, it has also been a catalyst for much-needed progress in digitisation. The pandemic has driven increased adoption and acceptance of technology and a complete rethink about where and how healthcare is delivered.

For example, Covid-19 has essentially confirmed the viability of delivering healthcare outside hospital walls with the increased use of telehealth and virtual care services. Nearly one third of APAC's healthcare leaders are currently heavily investing in healthcare professional-to-patient telehealth, with significant projected leaps in investment over the coming three years by countries like Singapore (from 11 per cent to 49 per cent) and Australia (from 20 per cent to 34 per cent). This shows that mainstream adoption of telehealth is likely to be a lasting impact of the pandemic.

As healthcare organisations set their sights on a resilient and sustainable future, ensuring that the intelligent solutions embedded in their operations are utilised to their full potential would be key to unlocking the delivery of more personalised, effective, and cost-efficient patient care.

What will the top trends be in Asia's healthcare industry in the next decade?

One of the top trends that is already underway is the shift of care from hospital to home and community settings. The expansion of modes of care delivery and willingness of patients to self-monitor has opened new ways for healthcare to be administered.

Singapore is leading the pack in this. Its healthcare leaders anticipate that although just 19% of routine care being provided outside of the hospital is currently delivered in the home, 45 per cent will be delivered at home three years from now - a bold target, which is higher than any of the other countries that we surveyed in our report.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to make healthcare systems more efficient is another trend that is also starting to take hold. There is potential to use AI more frequently and in more aspects of care. To sustain the pace of innovation, healthcare leaders will need to deploy AI more widely instead of just using it for administrative uses.

In APAC, there is a growing trend amongst healthcare leaders to adopt broader uses of AI's capabilities in the future to predict outcomes, integrate diagnostics and for clinical decision support. In three years from now, 79 per cent of APAC's healthcare leaders expect AI to be one of the digital health technologies they will be most heavily investing in, up from 46 per cent today.

Finally, there will be a shift in focus from 'sick care' to 'health care' in the next decade, as healthcare providers focus on keeping populations healthier for longer, rather than just treating them when they are sick. More education on healthy lifestyles and equipping people with the tools to track their own state of health will be a big part of this, with health-related apps on mobile phones and wearable devices making it easy for people to adopt.

How will hospitals themselves need to change?

In Asia Pacific, we face a unique set of health challenges: aging populations and rising rates of chronic diseases.

These require a healthcare system that is connected, aware and adaptive to patient needs, which calls for a total rethink of the way hospitals are designed.

We are seeing the dawn of 'smart hospitals' - that use technology to bridge the gap between a care setting and the home. Telehealth and predictive analytics will be key features of the success of the smart hospital. For example, patients who are having acute episodes can be monitored from home, freeing up bed capacity and saving resources. Predictive analytics can identify at-risk patients in their homes to prevent hospital readmissions and prevent avoidable downtime of medical equipment. Via sensors and patients' own devices, clinicians will be able to carry out virtual wellness checks and monitor their patients remotely.

These changes can give the patient a better experience and improve patient outcomes, all while potentially lowering the cost of care. Rather than the hospital serving as the hub of all care, smart hospitals of the future will become centers of excellence for specialized care or highly acute conditions in place of other traditionally in-person services.

What will these 'hospitals of the future' look like?

The hospital of the future is a network with flexible capacity, connected by a single digital infrastructure: critically ill patients are cared for in (remotely supported) ICUs; regular care takes place in connected health hubs in the community, while the at-risk patient population is monitored remotely and more engaged with their health than ever before.

Instead of being one fixed location, the hospital of the future is a network which is more scalable and modular than ever before. It's flexible enough to deliver highly complex care to large numbers of new patients in ever-changing locations, while continuing to provide regular and elective care to the rest of the population.

When more care is delivered in the community, there is the opportunity to use the space within hospital buildings differently. With fewer patients in the hospital, architects and health care organisations are incorporating principles of social design into the hospital environment. Considering the size and layout of a room, bed placement, space allowance, and other predictors of health outcomes, reimaging hospital spaces could mean more spacious wards for patients who do still need to be treated in hospital, or new features to make the patients' overall experience more comfortable.

An example of this is the recent partnership between Philips Ambient Experiences and Disney to add features to MRI machines that allow young patients to choose lights, videos and sounds to be played inside the interior chamber of the machine. This made the experience of having an MRI scan less scary, and improved staff ability to perform the MRI procedure efficiently. This is how we should endeavor to deliver care - with the patient at the heart of it.

How can the healthcare sector make progress on sustainability?

Our Future Health Index 2021 study reveals that the industry is at an important tipping point for prioritising sustainability - 49 per cent of APAC healthcare leaders expect to prioritise the implementation of sustainability practices in their hospital or healthcare facility three years from now, up from just 5 per cent today.

The move towards virtual care and shift of care delivery to the home setting in APAC will both be important steps in reducing the industry's footprint.

It is equally important that large companies galvanise and support others - customers, stakeholders, employees and partners - to also play their part.

APAC's healthcare leaders have a responsibility to ensure environmental considerations are part of all procurement and partnership decisions by scaling their decarbonisation success with their supply chain partners. In October 2021, we announced additional actions as part of our supplier sustainability program, which aims to have at least 50 per cent of suppliers committing to science-based targets for CO₂ emissions reduction by 2025. We expect this to have an impact seven times greater than we could ever achieve on our own.