Philips India shrinks ultrasound, ECG machines
BANGALORE: Philips just shrunk the ultrasound and ECG machines, making them small enough to carry around in your pockets. And most of that work was done at its research centre in Bangalore – a choice it made partly because of the phenomenal engineering talent here, but also because countries like India will be among the primary markets for these products that can easily be taken to remote locations for quick and cost-effective diagnosis.
On Thursday, the 23-billion euro Dutch company launched the products at its campus here before journalists from around the world. Jeroen Tas, head of informatics solutions and services at Philips’ healthcare business, said the company’s vision was to leverage mobile technologies, smartphones and wearable devices to monitor people’s health and prevent problems from emerging. “We have so far been looking at healthcare the wrong way. It has been organized around acute events. The more important question is, how can we prevent such events,” he said.
The new portable devices can be taken to people, instead of people having to come to hospitals to avail of them. They can be used with minimal training. And where necessary, the data from these devices can be easily transmitted to mobile devices of doctors in city hospitals for quick diagnosis.
