Royal Philips, the world’s leading diversified health and well-being company, focused on improving people’s lives through meaningful innovation in the areas of healthcare, consumer lifestyle and lighting has unveiled its new ultra–mobile ultrasound system, VISIQ onto the Ghanaian market.
The tablet-sized VISIQ, which is the first ultra –mobile system from Philips was launched by the Vice President & General Manger of Philips, Peter van de Ven, Senior Vice President and CEO Philips Africa, J.J van Dongen and the Managing Director for Philips West Africa Hub, Abdallah Khamis in Accra, as part of the Philips’ fifth Cairo to Cape Town Road show.
Currently in its fifth consecutive year, the road show enables Philips to engage in dialogue with customers, governments, NGOs and the media to ascertain a better understanding of each country’s unique requirements and to develop relevant technology to support their needs on maternal and infant care, according to the senior executives of Philips. The newly launched Philips VISIQ provides high quality images for expectant mothers, wherever care is taking place.
VISIQ exemplifies Philips commitment to more cost effective, simplified, patient–focused health care innovations with high clinical performance, Vice President & General Manger of Philips, Peter van de Ven told Journalists in Accra. He stated: “By launching this new system in Ghana Philips continues to demonstrate its dedicated support to the Ghanaian Ministry of Health in its mission to reduce child mortality rates, improve maternal health, meet the UN Millennium Development Goals 4 & 5 and revitalize Ghana’s healthcare infrastructure”.
According to the Philips Fabric of Africa trends reports, women in Africa are at significant risk of premature death, with particular high mortality rates recorded in pregnancy. Women in semi-urban and rural areas across Ghana (in fact all of Africa) often die due to preventable complications during child birth as they have no access to ultrasound screenings to detect critical conditions. Many of these deaths can be diagnosed with basic image technology.
One of the benefits of VISIQ is that it is portable and easy to use so it’s available for expectant mothers in remote areas who wouldn’t otherwise have access to this type of innovative technology.” It makes me proud to see how Philip ‘cost-effective, easy to operate ultrasound systems can make a real difference in Africa. It shows that meaningful innovations can contribute to saving people’s lives,” Mr. van de Ven noted.
He stressed: “Improving access to healthcare is high on the Philips agenda in Africa and we are very eager to contribute to the goals of the Ghanaian government to improve access to quality care for all Ghanaians in order to achieve a healthier national population. VISIQ allows clinicians to provide ultrasound in a variety of clinical environments, offering soon-to-be parents the comfort of having regular pre-natal check-ups”.
The Managing Director for Philips West Africa Hub, Abdallah Khamis stated: “Lifestyle diseases are taking our lives more than HIV/AIDS and malaria and these are things we can prevent by constantly committing to living well by using different habits that will prevent us from contracting diseases.
The other one is building the capacity of people. We are building the capacity of customers, partners, consumers, stakeholders in various departments including lighting, healthcare, and consumer lifestyle. So, we train these people and they become better people on how to use some of these devices and help treat the patients better”.
“As investment demand continues to grow in most of Africa, we are very positive about expanding our business footprint on the continent. In the past decade, six of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world were in Africa; Philips is therefore aiming for double digit growth in the coming years”, states JJ van Dongen, Senior Vice President and CEO Philips Africa.
“Local entrepreneurship and talent development continue to be key in addressing the complexities of the African market and in developing locally relevant innovations that meet the needs of Africa’s growing middle class.”
Be the first to comment