Philips supports health care delivery in Africa
Africa is among several markets to benefit from innovations that seek to address challenges in the health sector, especially in rural areas.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of Royal Philips, Mr Frans van Houten, the move was designed to enable communities which cannot afford the huge cost of health care to access such facilities.
Mr Houten was opening this year's Innovation Experience dubbed Innovation and You in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, which was aimed at showcasing various products developed by Phillips Healthcare to help people live a healthier life, as well as innovations that would make healthcare more widely available to those who need it.
Over 120 selected media practitioners from across the globe participated in the three-day programme.
Child mortality
Mr Houten said Philips was deeply engaged in healthcare activities in Africa, where, for instance, child mortality still ranged from six to seven per cent, by providing in rural clinics simple solutions such as an ultrasound solutions which could determine whether a baby was well placed in the womb.
He explained that with this device, clinicians in remote areas, for example, as well as family doctors at small outpatient clinics in hard-to-reach communities could perform basic scans themselves, speeding up the diagnosis process and possible treatments in order to save lives.
The device uses mobile technology to connect expectant mothers and care professionals in remote rural areas with monitoring and healthcare expertise available in big city hospitals.
“Innovation has been and will always be at the heart of Philips and the Innovation Experience underlines how we are pushing the boundaries to improve people’s lives with a host of great products and services,” said the Philips CEO.
He noted that thanks to advances in imaging and monitoring technologies, combined with rapid development in digital health data and cloud computing, Philips was leading the transformation of the healthcare industry and creating highly integrated, personalised care with better outcomes at lower costs.
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