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If mobile Internet devices don’t work out, Intel is also making inroads in the personal health market. The chipmaker today launched a patient monitoring device and online interface to connect doctors and their patients remotely. This is an industry Intel has targeted for years, but because of a host of reasons, a market where the company has never gained much traction.
The Intel Health Guide product gained FDA approval in July, surmounting one of the obstacles technology faces as it enters the human body, but it still has to gain market acceptance. Aside from FDA approval, medical tech needs to gain acceptance by caregivers, patients and health insurers. Getting all three stakeholders behind a new product or a new way of delivering health care is tricky. Because the end users of the device don’t typically pay for the systems, it’s a far more involved process than simply convincing a device manufacturer that your chips, software or component works best for their particular application.
Intel’s launching trials in the U.S. with Aetna, Erickson Retirement Communities, Providence Medical Group in Oregon and SCAN Health Plan, proving that Intel knows it needs to get the technology buyers on board before trying to explain the value to doctors and educate patients. I’ll keep my hopes up, because I do believe technology can deliver great benefits in the healthcare sector for everyone involved. However, I also know that getting accepted is difficult — and that acceptance only the begining. Once the stakeholders sign on to such a system, businesses and policy makers need to address questions of securing the information, as well as the ethics of remote monitoring. But the potential for huge growth as Baby Boomers age and the multiple types of chips such systems will need make it a market that’s hard to ignore.
Comprehensive Intel Health Guide seeks to provide in-home health monitoring
Filed under: Desktops, Misc. Gadgets
In-home medical monitoring systems are far from new, but everyone takes notice when a firm like Intel formally announces that it's diving in headfirst. According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Intel is gearing up to launch a series of trials with health-care organizations in order to "show whether the new tools bring improved results in treating conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease." More specifically, the Intel Health Guide -- which includes a "simplified computer and software system that are designed to help elderly people and other patients monitor and manage their conditions at home" -- will connect to medical equipment and thentransmit that information with specified individuals (namely health professionals) over the 'net. Admittedly, the initiative is far from being implemented in non-trial form, but it should be good to go by the time you start forgetting things and kvetching about the taste of your tap water.
In-home device from the chipmaker will gather data and dispense advice remotely to chronically ill patients.
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