Philips Acquires Direct Radiology Teleradiology Platform

Royal Philips (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) is expanding its radiology solutions portfolio with innovative teleradiology services, aimed at addressing the increasing shortage of radiologists, as well as the pressing need to improve access to precision diagnoses.

Its new teleradiology services build on the recent acquisition of the teleradiology platform of Direct Radiology (Coeur d’ Alene, ID, USA) that Philips plans to scale to support radiologists globally. This complements Philips’ organic innovation initiatives to expand its Radiology Solutions portfolio. The Direct Radiology business currently provides services for more than 300 hospitals, imaging centers, mobile imaging services, and doctors’ offices across the US.

Teleradiology involves the remote interpretation of patient images from medical imaging exams, such as CT, MR, and X-ray exams, by radiologists without needing them to be in the same location as the patient. It includes remotely storing, retrieving, viewing and analyzing medical images by clinical experts anywhere, so that patients can receive optimal treatment via their local caregivers, wherever they are. The global teleradiology market is among the fastest growing segments in the radiology and the clinical services outsourcing market, and is expected to be a sizable part of the imaging interpretation market within the next few years.

Philips’ new telehealth services will build on its cloud-based radiology informatics portfolio of Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) and Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) solutions, combined with advanced analytics, visualization and workflow applications, to now also include advanced teleradiology viewing and reporting capabilities, on-call radiologist services, and related exam workflow enhancement applications.

“As health systems worldwide struggle with the ever increasing costs and shortage of care providers, teleradiology will be a key enabler to optimally use the available resources, and support radiology departments to improve the speed and accuracy of image interpretation,” said Sham Sokka, business leader of Radiology Solutions at Philips. "We see imaging as a system and deliver innovation to support the needs of all the people behind the images by seamlessly integrating technology and data. Our new teleradiology services address a pressing need, while providing a strong platform for Philips’ future growth in the telehealth market.”