* To act as medical tech supplier to Mackenzie Health
* Philips seeks such deals as a pure health tech firm
* Says it can help lower costs, improve patients' health
AMSTERDAM, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Philips PHG.AS said on
Tuesday it has won a C$300 million ($226 mln) long-term contract
to act as medical technology supplier and consultant to Canadian
healthcare provider Mackenzie Health.
CEO Frans van Houten said the 18-year contract with
Mackenzie is the kind of deal that will become increasingly
important to Philips when it becomes a pure "health tech"
company next year. Philips is in the process of selling its
lighting division, the world's largest lighting maker.
In the past, Philips and major competitors Siemens
SIEGn.DE and General Electric (N:GE) GE.N competed primarily on the
price and quality of individual high-end healthcare machines
such as CT scanners or patient monitoring systems.
Under the deal with Mackenzie, Philips will collaborate in
the design and outfitting of Mackenzie's systems and equipment,
including room layout and IT design, with the goal of lowering
costs and improving patients' health.
In a telephone interview, Van Houten said the goal is to
manage the process as a whole, from preventing health problems
in the first place all the way through to care after a patient
returns home from a hospital stay.
"A siloed approach between suppliers doesn't really help
hospitals well enough" anymore, Van Houten said.
"You need to follow the patient (throughout an interface
with the health system) and you need to integrate the data."
The deal is one of a number the company has inked in recent
years of increasing size, he said.
In 2013 and 2014 it signed $300 million deals with Georgia
Regents Medical Center and Karolinska Hospital in Sweden. In
June it signed a $500 million deal with U.S. Westchester Medical
Center Health Network, its largest contract of this kind to
date.
($1 = 1.3284 Canadian dollars)