SingHealth and Philips launch smart ICUs that minimise false alarms

The system uses predictive capabilities for early treatment in general wards.

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The Singapore Health Services (SingHealth) and Royal Philips are working on optimising smart intensive care unit (ICU) capacity across the city-state's public cluster to prevent frequent false alarms that can overshadow real emergencies and put patient safety at risk.

“Predictive capabilities integrated into the system can detect patient deterioration early and allow treatments to be given in the general ward without having to move patients to the ICU,” Nic Schneider, head of hospital and patient monitoring at Philips Asia-Pacific, told Healthcare Asia.

“The system connects data across departments and varying levels of patient severity, where we optimise surveillance to minimise alarm fatigue,” he said in an interview.

The global ICU monitoring market is expected to grow 8.5% annually to approximately $8b by 2030 from 2023 due to the rising prevalence of life-threatening health conditions and a growing emphasis on patient safety and care quality, a report by Verified Market Reports revealed.

Expanding capacity