Telemedicine services are gaining entry into Japanese hospitals. Royal Philips recently announced its deal with Showa University in Japan in order to launch the first telemedicine intensive care program (eICU) at Showa Koto Toyosu Hospital and Showa University Hospital. This program will reduce mortality rates and increase savings as well as case volume.

Hiroyuki Tsutsumi, the CEO of Philips in Japan said, “The eICU represents the future of globalized critical care, transforming the delivery of care from the bedside; Having a centralized remote patient support center provides the ability to consolidate and standardize care, reduce transfers while maximizing bed utilization, and reassure bedside staff. This helps reduces costs while enhancing revenues, patient flow, and capacity management across the system.”

Otake, the Professor from Showa University Hospital said, "This partnership enables a fundamental shift in the delivery of critical care, impacting outcomes and reducing costs, by leveraging technology to support access to highly experienced critical care physicians and nurses which is an ongoing challenge for hospitals internationally, especially in Japan; Telehealth solutions, like the Philips eICU program, can help deliver much-needed expertise to impact providers, clinicians and patients."

Since this program has been successful in the Americas, the UK, Australia, and the Middle East, the service enables clinicians to deliver better critical care support to all patients across multiple sites by allowing real-time remote patient monitoring and early intervention via advanced audio-visual technology. A well developed smart algorithm could predict health issues and suggest the best treatment available nearby their locality.