Philips and Nicklaus Children's Health System have joined forces to enhance pediatric care for the health system’s more than 500,000 annual patients. As part of the 10-year collaboration, they will adopt the Ingenia Ambition X MR and EPIQ CVx ultrasound as well as a number of patient experience technologies.

“As the premier pediatric hospital in South Florida, we seek collaborators for important initiatives that align with our mission, vision, and culture, as well as our strategic focus for generations to come,” senior vice president and chief operating officer of Nicklaus Children's Health System and president, Nicklaus Children's Hospital, told HCB News. “We selected Philips for this initiative as it shares our commitment to innovation and advancing the overall experience for our patients.”

Both Nicklaus and Philips understand the importance of designing MR technologies specifically for children. The patient experience technologies that the health system plans to adopt include a toy MR called the Kitten Scanner, the Philips Scan Buddy app, which features educational videos and games, and the Philips Ambient Experience.

"Kids are not just small adults — they have very different needs," Sanne Nauts, senior scientist at Philips, told HCB News. "It can be very difficult and very challenging for a young child to have an MR scan. They need to get into this large machine, lie still for an extended period of time, and the scanner makes a lot of very jarring, loud noises."

The goal is to get the children familiar with how the technology works and what to expect during the exam. The idea is that if they’re able to remain calm, then there will be no need for sedation.

"A lot of hospitals use anesthesia or sedation to scan young children," Nauts explained. "That's suboptimal for kids because if they have a lot of these cases and they're exposed to anesthetic agents, there's always a small risk of side effects."

In fact, the FDA issued a safety announcement in 2016 warning that “repeated or lengthy use of general anesthetic and sedation drugs during surgeries or procedures in children younger than three years may affect the development of their brains.”

University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany conducted a study on the prototype version of the Philips Scan Buddy app and found that it successfully allowed them to scan children without the need for general anesthesia or sedation. Now they are involved in a study looking at the full version of the app, which is the one that Nicklaus is adopting.

When developing these technologies, Nauts and her team consulted with child psychologists and learned the importance of using the right language when explaining the exam. For example, the scanner is referred to as a camera because that's something kids can easily understand and contrast dye is referred to as medicine.

"If you say something like contrast dye, they can get very anxious," said Nauts. "Kids can have very different conceptions about what will happen with a scanner that adults don't even think about."

She added that they may fear a monster is behind the scanner or that the bore will close in on them.

In addition to the patient experience technologies, Nicklaus will also adopt the Philips EPIQ CVx and Compact 5500CV AI-enabled ultrasound systems. These technologies automate measurements and strain quantification and have been shown to reduce quantification time by 51% and exam time for 2D imaging by 20%.

The health system will also become the first mobile adoption of the virtually helium-free Philips Ambition X MR. The system will come equipped with the SmartWorkFlow and SmartSpeed MR technologies, which automate set-up and speed up the exam by up to 65%.

“The collaboration will ensure that we continue to offer the best quality care for our patients by using leading-edge pediatric medical technology with proven effectiveness,” said Reed. “It will support our organization in driving clinical innovation over our multiyear agreement, with a focus on patient safety, quality, and outcomes.”