Philips-led IWISH project wins ITEA award for advancing AI solutions in hospital operating rooms

Philips-led IWISH project wins ITEA award for advancing AI solutions in hospital operating rooms

(IN BRIEF) Philips and its consortium partners have received the ITEA Award of Excellence for Business Impact for the IWISH project, which has successfully demonstrated how AI-driven technologies can enhance operating room workflows and reduce healthcare costs. By combining machine learning, synthetic data, and real-time gaze tracking, IWISH has achieved a 36% improvement in surgeries finishing on time and significantly increased the accuracy of recognizing intraoperative activities. With applications tested in gynecology, cardiac catheterization, gallbladder surgery, and resource management, the project highlights how hospitals can improve efficiency and resource allocation. Philips plans to further develop these innovations within its image-guided therapy systems in collaboration with clinical partners.

(PRESS RELEASE) AMSTERDAM, 19-Seo-2025 — /EuropaWire/ — The IWISH (Intelligent Workflow Optimization and Intuitive System Interaction in Healthcare) project, coordinated by Philips, has been awarded the prestigious ITEA Award of Excellence for Business Impact. The recognition highlights the project’s success in using advanced technologies to improve hospital operating room (OR) efficiency and drive innovation in clinical workflows.

Part of the Eureka Research, Development and Innovation Cluster on software innovation, the three-year public-private partnership focused on combining machine learning, synthetic data generation, and real-time gaze tracking to address inefficiencies in surgical planning and execution. These inefficiencies are estimated to cost European hospitals around EUR 9 billion annually. The consortium has demonstrated that AI-based applications can play a transformative role in optimizing clinical processes, reducing delays, and lowering healthcare costs.

“The IWISH project has demonstrated how AI-based applications can help optimize clinical workflows and reduce healthcare costs,” said Robert Hofsink, Manager Public Private Partnerships & Open Innovation at Philips. “It was great to work with such a dedicated consortium, and I look forward to making its achievements part of everyday clinical practice.”

Conventional operating room planning systems struggle with the unpredictable nature of surgical procedures, often leading to wasted resources and delays. IWISH developed AI-driven, video-based procedure tracking and scheduling tools to meet this challenge. Its real-time tracking technology can identify intraoperative phases and activities, enabling more accurate workflow management. Early tests have shown that procedures finishing on time increased by 36% while accuracy in recognizing surgical phases and activities significantly improved.

The project also introduced AI engines designed to support hospital appointment booking and dynamic rescheduling, tested across multiple use cases including gynecology, cardiac catheterization, gallbladder surgery, and resource allocation. These tools have the potential to make parallel operating room management more efficient and give staff new ways to coordinate resources.

Philips intends to further advance IWISH technologies within its image-guided therapy systems, collaborating with clinical partners to refine and expand their application. By bridging AI, clinical practice, and hospital operations, the project marks an important step towards the future of smarter, more efficient healthcare environments.

Media Contact:

Steve Klink
Philips Medical and Scientific Communication
Tel: +31610888824
media@philips.com

SOURCE: Philips