Philips and Leiden University Medical Center Extend Collaboration with New Research Agreement on Healthy Aging and Personal Health

PhilipsRoyal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) and Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) today announced a new research collaboration aimed at improving preventative care and chronic care through wearable technologies. The organizations intend to attain new data-driven insights into the relationship between lifestyle and health in elderly people. This will support the development of personalized coaching solutions using wearable sensors to help people to age more healthy and reduce the impact of illness and chronic conditions.

As people live longer and lifestyles change, more people are confronted with chronic disease. In addition to having a major impact on people's quality of life, this puts increased pressure on healthcare systems.

New wearable sensor technologies are rapidly becoming available and could play an important role in healthy lifestyles and treatment compliance. The current challenge is to turn the data these new devices offer into clinically relevant information. This will help build scientifically proven and clinically validated solutions to improve the outcomes of lifestyle intervention programs and medical treatments.

For this purpose, Philips and LUMC will jointly run clinical trials to identify and improve how people respond to lifestyle intervention programs. By analyzing health and wearable sensor data, the partners aim to gain fundamental new insights into how innovative technologies and coaching programs can effectively impact personal lifestyle and health - particularly in people who are at risk of or suffering from chronic conditions.

"We can use the data we obtain to assess new solutions and approaches for personalizing intervention programs that encourage at-risk people to make lifestyle choices, which help prevent the onset of disease, or promote treatment compliance in diagnosed patients," said Simon Mooijaart, MD, PhD, internist-geriatrician at Leiden University Medical Center. "This could help reduce the number of people admitted to hospital for treatment of chronic disease. Furthermore, once people have chronic disease or functional limitations, robust measurement of these lifestyle factors using innovative sensors can help in tailoring healthcare to their specific needs, ultimately improving quality of life in older age."

"The correlation between personal lifestyle and health is key in making the change from a reactive to a proactive healthcare approach in which we help people manage their health before chronic conditions develop and after they are diagnosed," said Henk Valk, General Manager of Philips Healthcare Benelux. "The fastest, most effective way to develop such solutions is to work with expert partners like LUMC, who bring the clinical insights and competencies that complement our own."

The clinical trials run within the Philips and LUMC collaboration will generate key data for developing algorithms to assess physiological and behavioral parameters such as activity, sleep, exercise and sedentary time. The partners will also work on algorithms to translate this information into insights on how users are adhering to their treatment plans and achieve their personal goals. A third focus area will be to develop analytical solutions for predicting parameters such as blood metabolites, blood pressure, blood glucose levels and cardio-respiratory fitness. This could enable the monitoring of health progress in people following a lifestyle intervention program.

While the initial trials will focus on elderly people, the results could lay the foundations for new solutions and services for people of all ages.

Chronic disease already accounts for around 70% of the global healthcare budget[1]. There is overwhelming evidence that lifestyle factors such as unhealthy nutrition, stress, sleep patterns and physical activity levels play a key role in the development of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart failure and elevated blood pressure. Consequently, supporting people in making healthy lifestyle choices could help significantly relieve the burden on healthcare systems and improve people’s quality of life.

This new collaboration extends an already successful relationship between the two partners. As an example, Philips and LUMC are working together in extensive neuro imaging research programs to gain more insight into Alzheimer's disease.

1. World Economic Forum, EFPIA, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Related news articles:

About Leiden University Medical Center
As a center of medical innovations the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) strives towards an (inter)nationally recognized leading role in the improvement of quality of health care. Core business of the LUMC are patient care, research, education and training. The LUMC is part of the Dutch Federation of University Medical Centers (NFU). The NFU is a collaboration of the 8 University Medical Centers of the Netherlands.

About Royal Philips
Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a diversified health and well-being company, focused on improving people's lives through meaningful innovation in the areas of Healthcare, Consumer Lifestyle and Lighting. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips posted 2014 sales of EUR 21.4 billion and employs approximately 105,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. The company is a leader in cardiac care, acute care and home healthcare, energy efficient lighting solutions and new lighting applications, as well as male shaving and grooming and oral healthcare.

Most Popular Now

AI for Real-Rime, Patient-Focused Insigh…

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but still... they both have a lot of work to do to catch up to BiomedGPT. Covered recently in the prestigious journal Nature...

New Research Shows Promise and Limitatio…

Published in JAMA Network Open, a collaborative team of researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School, Stanford University, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the University of Virginia studied...

G-Cloud 14 Makes it Easier for NHS to Bu…

NHS organisations will be able to save valuable time and resource in the procurement of technologies that can make a significant difference to patient experience, in the latest iteration of...

Hampshire Emergency Departments Digitise…

Emergency departments in three hospitals across Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have deployed Alcidion's Miya Emergency, digitising paper processes, saving clinical teams time, automating tasks, and providing trust-wide visibility of...

Start-Ups will Once Again Have a Starrin…

11 - 14 November 2024, Düsseldorf, Germany. The finalists in the 16th Healthcare Innovation World Cup and the 13th MEDICA START-UP COMPETITION have advanced from around 550 candidates based in 62...

MEDICA HEALTH IT FORUM: Success in Maste…

11 - 14 November 2024, Düsseldorf, Germany. How can innovations help to master the great challenges and demands with which healthcare is confronted across international borders? This central question will be...

A "Chemical ChatGPT" for New M…

Researchers from the University of Bonn have trained an AI process to predict potential active ingredients with special properties. Therefore, they derived a chemical language model - a kind of...

Siemens Healthineers co-leads EU Project…

Siemens Healthineers is joining forces with more than 20 industry and public partners, including seven leading stroke hospitals, to improve stroke management for patients all over Europe. With a total...

MEDICA and COMPAMED 2024: Shining a Ligh…

11 - 14 November 2024, Düsseldorf, Germany. Christian Grosser, Director Health & Medical Technologies, is looking forward to events getting under way: "From next Monday to Thursday, we will once again...

In 10 Seconds, an AI Model Detects Cance…

Researchers have developed an AI powered model that - in 10 seconds - can determine during surgery if any part of a cancerous brain tumor that could be removed remains...

Does AI Improve Doctors' Diagnoses?

With hospitals already deploying artificial intelligence to improve patient care, a new study has found that using Chat GPT Plus does not significantly improve the accuracy of doctors' diagnoses when...

AI Analysis of PET/CT Images can Predict…

Dr. Watanabe and his teams from Niigata University have revealed that PET/CT image analysis using artificial intelligence (AI) can predict the occurrence of interstitial lung disease, known as a serious...