Business leader Sleep and Respiratory Care at Philips, John Frank said at the time of the deal that, "this acquisition will help us further expand our leadership position in the growing home care market, and our ability to deliver integrated solutions that drive efficiencies and improved outcomes.”

Prior to this, Philips made global market news when it announced a deal with cloud-based healthcare service provider Digital China Health to co-create a teleradiology application and services platform called SHINEFLY to assist with the growing imaging procedure volume in the country.


SHINEFLY is a system that stores, retrieves, views and analyzes medical images – letting experts anywhere weigh in on the diagnosis and generate reports.

“We have worked together with local partners to develop a solution that is fully optimized to address the local healthcare challenges and needs,” Shi Wenzhao, CEO of Digital China Health, told HCB News at the time. “This means SHINEFLY has been purpose-built for the Chinese market and will only be made available in China.”

The pairing with SHINEFLY comes at a time when imaging procedure volume is growing faster than the number of radiologists to read them. Many hospitals, as a result, are too short on funds to provide access to sufficiently qualified radiology staffers, creating delays and decreasing the quality of care for patients.

“The development of the healthcare big data industry is one of the government priorities to drive healthcare reform,” said Wenzhao. “With this aim, the Chinese government has formed three state-owned groups to fulfill the state mission and drive the development and application of ‘healthcare big data’.”

The mother company of Digital Health China is DC Holdings, which belongs to one of the national teams. Philips has also been working with other local IT giants in China that are part of national teams.

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