CHICAGO (Reuters)- Intel Corp, the world’s biggest computer chip maker, on Thursday wonclearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell an in-homehealth monitoring system for patients with chronic conditions.
The system, called Health Guide, combines an in-home patient deviceas well as online access that enables health care professionals tomonitor patients and remotely manage care.
It incorporates interactive tools for personalized care managementand integrates vital sign collection, patient reminders, multimediaeducational content and feedback, and communications tools such asvideo conferencing and e-mail.
The Health Guide system can connect to specific models of wired andwireless medical devices, including blood pressure monitors, glucosemeters, pulse oximeters, peak flow meters and weight scales. It alsostores and displays collected information on a touch screen and sendsto a secure host server, where health care professionals can review theinformation.
"We’re focusing on chronic conditions and that’s approaching abillion patients. The system will enable those people to connect withtheir caregivers from home," Louis Burns, vice president and generalmanager of Intel’s Digital Health Group, said in a telephone interview.
He declined to estimate the size of the market or growth rates butsaid the system will initially be marketed to insurance companies,health care providers and governments.
The company is still doing pilot studies and initial results suggest using the system will save money, Burns said.
"The feedback has been good. The clinicians like it and the elders like it," he said.
"The elders like it because it’s intuitive … and they’re an activeparticipant in what’s going on with their health," he said, adding thatolder patients are used to being put into a passive role with regard totheir own health care.
Medical device makers Medtronic Inc and St. Jude Medical Inc alreadyhave remote monitoring systems for heart patients. Burns said he viewedthose systems as complements, rather than competitors, to Health Guide.
Intel said it expects Health Guide to be commercially available fromhealth care providers in the United States and the UK late this year orearly next year.
Andrew Rocklin, principal of Chicago-based Diamond Management andTechnology Consultants, said the Intel system could be expanded toinclude patients just discharged from the hospital, as well as thegenerally healthy population looking to stay well.
The key to success, he said, is Intel’s ability to sell it broadly so that it can be established as an industry standard.
"Even one big insurance company, or even better a consortia of insurance companies, could start driving scale," Rocklin said.
Shares of Intel, among the most actively traded on the Nasdaq Thursday morning, were up 15 cents to $19.96.
(Reporting by Debra Sherman, editing by Phil Berlowitz and John Wallace)
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