Philips and Dana-Farber operationalize and scale Clinical Pathways

Dana-Farber’s Pathways and Philips full suite of Oncology Informatics Solutions deliver best practices and clinical decision support for cancer care management

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) today announced it will be implementing Clinical Pathways to establish best practices in cancer care. The Dana-Farber Clinical Pathways will be deployed through the Philips IntelliSpace Oncology Platform, providing clinical decision support to physicians via a patient-centric solution. The implementation will help oncologists quickly reach the most appropriate cancer treatments for patients, based on the unified view of the patient across diagnostic modalities and the embedded knowledge of Clinical Pathways, and can be delivered through existing EHR platforms.

Cancer is an incredibly complex set of diseases and the amount of information and treatment options available can be challenging to cope with for oncologists. Philips will leverage Dana-Farber Clinical Pathways to effectively map cancer patients to the appropriate treatment options. Philips will power this clinical decision support through its oncology informatics suite, which integrates radiology, pathology, genomics and EHR data to support pathways to scale precision medicine.

For example, in patients whose chronic myelogenous leukemia is progressing after first-line therapy, Dana-Farber Pathways helps physicians sort through over a dozen different possible resistance mutations and a handful of targeted therapies with very different side effect profiles to find the most appropriate treatment for that particular patient.

“Every cancer patient deserves the best possible care.  Our Clinical Pathways provide physicians with the most current, evidence-based best practices so that all patients may be treated with the same high standard of care,” said Laurie H. Glimcher, MD, President and CEO, Dana-Farber. “Cancer medicine is changing rapidly, and physicians are tasked with interpreting massive amounts of new information generated from publications and clinical trials.  Through this collaboration with Philips, we can help them choose the best possible treatment for patients based on specific information and the deep experience of our clinicians.”

“Patient-centric care is key to providing the best cancer treatment to those who need it,” said Frans van Houten, CEO of Royal Philips. “Together with our partners, we aim to optimize the flow of patient information from various sources and streamline care delivery through the adoption of best practices. By leveraging the unrivaled clinical knowledge and expertise incorporated in Dana-Farber Clinical Pathways, Philips’ oncology informatics suite of technologies can assist in providing the most effective care for people based on their genome, and then put it in the hand of doctors through clinical decision support.” 

Dana-Farber Clinical Pathways will provide best practices from the institute’s leading oncologists and extensive care teams to support cancer treatment, leveraging the integrated diagnostic capabilities of Philips IntelliSpace Oncology, a cloud-based precision medicine platform that integrates information across different clinical domains. As cancer treatment changes regularly, updates will be made to each pathway several times a year.