According to the 2017 National Diabetes Statistic Report, more than 100 million people in the United States have diabetes or pre-diabetes. Comprehensive point-of-care testing for diabetes has improved patient outcomes. Siemens Healthineers and Hill-Rom have signed a co-marketing agreement to provide a suite of point-of-care diagnostic instruments, that, for the first time, will allow primary care providers bridge gaps in diabetes care and satisfy value-based quality measures in a single office visit.
Siemens Healthineers is the largest manufacturer of point-of-care solutions for diabetes and urinalysis testing. Hill-Rom is a leading global medical technology company. The joint offering by these industry leaders includes the Siemens' DCA Vantage® Analyzer for HbA1c testing, the CLINITEK Status®+ Urine Chemistry Analyzer for kidney checks, and Hill-Rom's Welch Allyn® RetinaVue® Network and imaging technology for teleretinal exams.
These patient-centered solutions offer physicians more control over patient care by accomplishing proactive testing and treatment during a single visit. Improved workflow may reduce costs and eliminate inconvenient follow-up visits, leading to higher patient satisfaction and compliance with care regimens. While the DCA Vantage® analyzer monitors a patient's glycemic control in minutes with CLIA-waived HbA1c testing, the CLINITEK Status®+ Urine Chemistry Analyzer performs a kidney check in 60 seconds with CLIA-waived albumin-to-creatinine ratio testing.
Hill-Rom's Welch Allyn RetinaVue Network® offering enables physicians to perform in-office diabetic retinal exams. The images are captured in seconds with nonmydriatic cameras and transmitted through HIPAA-compliant software for interpretation by a nationwide team of board-certified ophthalmologists. Studies show that retinal health evaluation in primary care settings can be highly effective in promoting diabetic retinal eye exam compliance in a single year, resulting in timely, vision-saving treatment.
Mike Sampson, senior vice president of Point of Care Diagnostics, North America, Siemens Healthineers, said, "A patient's quality of life declines significantly when chronic diseases remain untreated, which is why testing for co-morbidities is so important. Our new commercial relationship with Hill-Rom will provide holistic, easy-to-implement solutions that aid in combating diabetes and related co-morbidities while satisfying value-based quality care measures. With operator-friendly analyzers that generate lab-quality results in minutes and capabilities to integrate test results with electronic health records, physicians can make immediate treatment decisions and improve long-term outcomes."