HME Industry Q&A with John Frank

HC: Philips is a large company that participates in a lot of markets. Why is HME important?

JF: Philips has a strong global presence in the larger health-care industry, including solutions for imaging, patient monitoring, ventilation and sleep-disordered breathing, to name a few. The home health-care market is complementary to Philips’ overall goal to provide health care wherever it is needed. Patients with chronic conditions often move among various health-care settings and we want to provide care at any location. We understand that people want their independence, so providing more ways for patients to be treated in their homes or on the go is of high importance.

HC: How do you expect the company’s HME business to expand or change in the future?

JF: Our home-care business, which we call Home Healthcare Solutions, helps people who struggle every day with chronic conditions such as sleep disorders, COPD and asthma. The prevalence of these conditions among an aging population will continue to rise and create higher demand for our solutions. Care in the home is desirable both to patients and their families, and is a less expensive alternative to hospitals or long-term care facilities. We are committed to helping providers enhance patient’s lives by delivering cost-effective solutions that drive better treatment, monitoring and management of their conditions.

HC: What does the company expect from its HME/DME dealer channel?

JF: As for the role of the HME provider, the changing market presents multiple challenges related to access to care and declining reimbursements. Even so, the role of the home-care provider has never been more critical. Despite the near-term operational and economic challenges, Philips and providers will continue to work together to navigate through these challenges. Simply put, we expect to collaborate with HME/DME providers to deliver the highest quality of care to patients. Philips recognizes we have to work more closely with providers and physicians to create better solutions to navigate change. For example, our Allies in Better Sleep and Breathing program provides greater focus and higher priority for all our resources within Philips. Together we can focus on more creative and broader solutions to help providers grow their businesses. Our new “Fit for Life” offering, as another example, is a comprehensive mask and service program for CPAP patients that combines the purchase of a mask with resupply services from Philips medSage or Respironics Encore data management system. This offering eliminates the provider’s operational costs of resupply while preserving reimbursement and the program is fully compliant with regulations.

HC: What technology innovations can we expect from Philips for the HME/DME market?

JF: Our main goal is to continue to develop better solutions to bring effective health care to the home and enable people with chronic conditions to be independent. We are pleased with the progress made in CPAP therapy in recent years and will continue efforts to advance the technology as well as provide other therapy choices for sleep-disordered patients. Furthermore, we are making good progress to evolve our range of solutions for COPD patients, including more sophisticated, noninvasive ventilators and advanced nebulizer systems. For those who use oxygen, new compact wearable systems that are smaller, lighter and more portable will supplement patients’ breathing while they’re on the go. Falls are a major problem in our aging population, with more than 13.3 million people over the age of 65 falling each year. The Philips’ Lifeline service with AutoAlert can help address this problem by detecting a fall and automatically placing a call for help if the user is unable to. Future developments are aimed at identifying and predicting the level of risk associated with falling.

To learn more, e-mail [email protected] or visit www.philips.com/respironics.