Intel Home Health

Posted on July 11, 2008

With the government having drawn back somewhat from home health care nursing which had grown to huge proportions by the early 90’s, there is room to bridge the gap left behind by the much less frequent home visits from a nursing professional.

It may come as some surprise that one of the big movers in the health care device field is Intel. They have wisely started branching out more and stopped tying themselves so much to the computing end of things. They are showing there is a lot more that can be done in other fields as well. And what more lucrative one than health care?

Its latest product Intel Health Guide won FDA approval this week, paving its way to being offered to nursing homes and care centers across the country. The new device collects vital signs and allows for videoconferencing with remote parties — such as nurses or doctors. Intel feels the device may see strong interest in the consumer sector as well, especially among the chronically ill, who could use it to better remotely interface with their doctors.About the size size of a small laptop, the device sits comfortably on a countertop and comes equipped with a 40 GB hard drive. It comes with a wide variety of features, including vital-sign collection, patient reminders, and educational content.

While Intel may have turned its back on Windows Vista, there’s no Linux here. This device is strictly Windows XP. The device offers wireless and wired interfaces to a broad array of medical monitors. It can be hooked up to glucose or blood-pressure monitors.

Doctors can remotely schedule times to collect vitals, or patients can do it themselves. After the vitals are collected, they are sent encrypted over broadband to a remote database. This setup ensures privacy of the personal information.

As you would imagine, Intel is just one of many major companies looking to diversify into the ever-growing health care field. IBM and Google (which recently launched Google health), are among the others. Many smaller companies are also leading the way, such as the exciting possibility from T2 Biosystems, which plans to deploy a handheld scanner, which can test for cancer, specific bacterial infections, and other health problems by 2010.