Philips acquire Health Watch medical alert service

Health Watch Holdings, a US-based national provider of personal response systems, has been acquired by Philips in a $130m (£65m) deal and will be merged with the company’s Lifeline medical alert service.

Health Watch offer a variety of Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS) and have been partnering with hospitals, home care agencies and municipalities across America since 1986.

In the UK Health Watch are partners with telecare specialists the Tunstall Partnership and have been working with the company to develop PERS for the UK market.

As part of the acquisition, the company’s 100,000 customers will be added the 500,000 existing US subscribers to Philip’s Lifeline medical alert service which lets patients call for help when necessary at the touch of a button.

Philips’ CEO and executive vice president of consumer healthcare solutions, Ivo Lurvink, said: “The acquisition of Health Watch builds on our successful acquisition of Lifeline Systems last year, and will allow us to leverage Lifeline’s existing investments in monitoring and service infrastructure and its roadmap of innovative products across a larger subscriber base.

“Through this move we expect to further increase the value-creating potential of Lifeline’s personal emergency response business.”

Philips say that both Lifeline’s and Health Watch’s twenty-four hour a day services give independently minded seniors the confidence to maintain an active life at home, knowing if they suddenly need help, they can send an alert to a monitoring center indicating they need assistance. Two-way communication allows a professionally trained operator to establish the nature of the problem so that appropriate action can then be taken.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, worldwide the estimated number of people over 65 is set to double from 550 million today to 1.2 billion in 2025. Many of these seniors want to keep living independently at home and Philips hope that its expanded PERS range will enable them to meet this need globally.

The deal is expected to be completed by the end of June.