A global leader in health technology, today announced the completion of 1000 active Cath lab (interventional suite) installations in India. Over the last quarter, the company has installed its state-of-the-art Azurion cath labs at major sites across the country including Fortis, Apollo, Aster, Manipal, NH and Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research Hospitals. The completion of 1000 active cath lab installations mark a major milestone in Philips’ mission to create innovative solutions designed to meet the company’s Quadruple Aim of better health outcomes, improved patient experience, improved staff experience, and lower cost of care.

Over the next few years, Philips aims to double the number of its active cath labs in India with a special focus on improving accessibility to quality cardiac and neurovascular care in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Philips has been a trusted partner for the Indian healthcare community for over two decades, having pioneered the treatment of cardiovascular diseases through innovative minimally invasive procedures. Currently, the company’s cath labs are present in all major tertiary care, Government and Private hospitals across India.

 Nitin Stephen Abel, Business Leader, Image Guided Therapy, Philips Indian Subcontinent said “At Philips, our purpose, to improve people’s health and well-being through meaningful innovations, is at the heart of everything we undertake. The completion of 1000 active cath lab installations are a testament to our commitment to assist the country in addressing its burden of cardiovascular disease. Over the next decade, we plan to further expand our cath labs reach to the remotest of locations, helping the medical community tackle more complex patient procedures. We are also constantly innovating and expanding across newer therapy areas. Even though most of image-guided therapy procedures treat cardiovascular diseases, its use is expanding into treatment of diseases in other organs such as the brain, lungs, and spine. As the range of diseases that can be treated with minimally invasive procedures continues to expand and the procedures themselves become more efficient, the patient’s treatment experience continues to improve. They experience less trauma and as a result, their hospital stays can be dramatically reduced.”  

The range and complexity of diseases that can be treated with minimally invasive procedures continues to expand in India. Concurrently, the procedures themselves are also becoming increasingly complex, requiring more physicians from different disciplines to be at the patient’s tableside, working together in a thoroughly connected way. This requires the clinical team to carry out challenging procedures in a constrained environment.

Philips Image-Guided Therapy System – Azurion – is an innovative image-guided therapy platform that helps interventionalists perform procedures through an intuitive interface and easy-to-use controls for clinical image capture, decreasing procedure times and allowing for more accurate scheduling of patients. Additionally, the platform makes it easier for staff to anticipate and see the information they need, when they need it, helping procedures flow more efficiently and easily. With Azurion FlexArm, customers can perform surgery with unlimited imaging flexibility for diverse patients.

Philips also has interventional application platforms such as IntraSight to seamlessly integrate intravascular imaging and physiology applications into the interventional lab workflow. In the recent past, Philips has acquired Volcano, Spectranetics and EPD solutions to accelerate expansion in image-guided therapy devices to support procedures in a range of clinical domains, including neurology, oncology, and cardiovascular procedures.

Philips is continuously innovating to bring in solutions such as the first spectral detector angio-CT solution that combines breakthrough spectral detector CT imaging and real-time fluoroscopy in a flexible environment where all modalities are operated through Philips Image-Guided Therapy System – Azurion with FlexArm. Philips’ Spectral detector CT imaging in the interventional suite will bring valuable additional information in minimally invasive procedures for areas such as oncology, stroke, and trauma care.