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Charles.Desassure
Thank you for this article Dylan McGrath. This is great news. Anything that ...
Rick Merritt
Intel, GE form healthcare joint venture
Dylan McGrath
8/2/2010 6:41 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO—Intel Corp. and General Electric Co. (GE) will form a healthcare company focused on so-called "telehealth" and independent living, the companies said Monday (Aug. 2).
The company will be formed by combining assets of GE Healthcare's Home Health division and Intel's Digital Health Group, and will be owned equally by GE and Intel, the companies said. Pending regulatory and other customary closing conditions, the joint venture is expected to become operational by the end of the year, the said. Financial terms of the arrangement were not disclosed.
Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) said the joint venture builds on a healthcare alliance between the two companies announced in April 2009. The two companies share a common vision to use technology to bring more effective healthcare into millions of homes and to improve the lives of seniors and people with chronic conditions, they said.
In recent years, Intel and other chip firms have been increasingly involved in
healthcare, which they see as a potentially much larger market for semiconductors. Earlier this year Intel announced that its first home medical device, the Intel Health Guide, is now available in the U.S., United Kingdom and Australia.
Telehealth is defined as the delivery of health-related services and information via telecommunications technologies. Proponents say doctors can more effectively monitor the health conditions of patients with more information made available to them. Effective telehealth will also decrease the overall cost of healthcare, they say.
Once formed, the new company will develop and market products, services and technologies that promote healthy, independent living at home and in assisted living communities around the world, the companies said. The venture will focus on chronic disease management, independent living and assistive technologies, they said.
Intel and GE will contribute assets in remote patient monitoring, independent living concepts and assistive technologies, such as the Intel Health Guide, Intel Reader and GE Healthcare's QuietCare, the companies said.
"New models of care delivery are required to address some of the largest issues facing society today, including our aging population, increasing healthcare costs and a large number of people living with chronic conditions," said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini, in a statement. "We must rethink models of care that go beyond hospital and clinic visits, to home and community-based care models that allow for prevention, early detection, behavior change and social support. The creation of this new company is aimed at accelerating just that."
The company will be formed by combining assets of GE Healthcare's Home Health division and Intel's Digital Health Group, and will be owned equally by GE and Intel, the companies said. Pending regulatory and other customary closing conditions, the joint venture is expected to become operational by the end of the year, the said. Financial terms of the arrangement were not disclosed.
Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) said the joint venture builds on a healthcare alliance between the two companies announced in April 2009. The two companies share a common vision to use technology to bring more effective healthcare into millions of homes and to improve the lives of seniors and people with chronic conditions, they said.
Louis Burns (left), vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Health Group, and Omar Ishrak, senior vice president of GE and president and CEO of GE Healthcare Systems, announced the intent to form a new healthcare joint venture between their firms.
In recent years, Intel and other chip firms have been increasingly involved in
healthcare, which they see as a potentially much larger market for semiconductors. Earlier this year Intel announced that its first home medical device, the Intel Health Guide, is now available in the U.S., United Kingdom and Australia.
Telehealth is defined as the delivery of health-related services and information via telecommunications technologies. Proponents say doctors can more effectively monitor the health conditions of patients with more information made available to them. Effective telehealth will also decrease the overall cost of healthcare, they say.
Once formed, the new company will develop and market products, services and technologies that promote healthy, independent living at home and in assisted living communities around the world, the companies said. The venture will focus on chronic disease management, independent living and assistive technologies, they said.
Intel and GE will contribute assets in remote patient monitoring, independent living concepts and assistive technologies, such as the Intel Health Guide, Intel Reader and GE Healthcare's QuietCare, the companies said.
The Intel Health Guide, described as a care management tool designed for health care
professionals who manage patients with chronic conditions
"New models of care delivery are required to address some of the largest issues facing society today, including our aging population, increasing healthcare costs and a large number of people living with chronic conditions," said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini, in a statement. "We must rethink models of care that go beyond hospital and clinic visits, to home and community-based care models that allow for prevention, early detection, behavior change and social support. The creation of this new company is aimed at accelerating just that."
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Rich Krajewski
8/2/2010 7:07 PM EDT
If I were to form an alliance in health care electronics, it would be with GE, as fearsome as they are. GE plays like Microsoft. That is, they do in the health equipment arena (and arena would be a very appropriate description). I can imagine a lot of good coming from home health care delivery in terms of lowering costs (it was a pet study project of mine in grad school). But, I'd be really afraid of the "behavior change" aspects that Intel's statement talked about. It sounds like they are talking about the "Chairman Gort" invention (the inventor actually called it the "Electronic Chairman"--hey, shouldn't that be chair person?) that was described elsewhere on the eetimes.com website. It was part of the "NXP Cortex-MO LPC1100 design competition." But if this alliance actually lowers medical costs for patients, makes medicine more available, and still respects the rights of patients, then I'm all for GE and Intel making a bundle off of this.
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Rich Krajewski
8/2/2010 7:10 PM EDT
Oops, my mistake. It was already called the "Electronic Chairperson." It's good that devices that zap you are inclusive.
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Rick Merritt
8/2/2010 10:07 PM EDT
Intel's Digital Health group has been doing excellent missionary work for the last five years in this field, including helping form and drive the Continua Allaince.
I expect this deal--telegraphed in the earlier alliance with GE--is an admission from the business side that this market is still in a very early state and not something Intel wants to keep pumping money in alone.
There's more services and software than silicon needed here and the chips that are needed are at the very low end of Intel's product line.
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KB3001
8/3/2010 4:03 PM EDT
...Intel's product line as it is currently, yes. Healthcare is too big a market even for Intel to ignore as the health needs of the world's population soar. The only way to keep a lid on expenditure is the use of more efficient technology. A strategic link with a major provider of healthcare systems like GE will give Intel a good chance to penetrate new product lines rapidly.
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chanj
8/3/2010 2:56 PM EDT
As the baby boomer generation grows old, the need of telehealth care is definitely coming. I can see the alliance will bring a lot of goodies to the people; not just to the patience. Telehealth care shall not only improve the quality but also reduce the cost. Products like patient monitor will definitely get improved.
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goafrit
8/3/2010 11:11 PM EDT
This is certainly going to become a new industry within the next five years. I think GE understands the need to partner with the world's biggest supply of microprocessor. However, I think Cisco would have been better with GE and not Intel. Cisco is a better alliance to me thank Intel for GE. What do you expect Intel to offer in this area?
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kdboyce
8/4/2010 1:17 AM EDT
It is true Intel has been a major contributor to the Continua Health Alliance. Rick Cnossen is
President and Chair of the Board of Directors,
Continua Health Alliance and also the Director of Personal Health Enabling, Intel Corporation Digital Health Group.
What is revealing is that GE was not a founding member, or even a current member, of Continua. This tie up with Intel can potentially give GE access to the Continua work of the various working groups. See list at:
http://www.continuaalliance.org/about-the-alliance/working-groups.html
Continua focuses on
-- Architectural framework - identify and characterize high-level functional components and interfaces.
-- Develop Interoperability Guidelines (define requirements, identify standards and technologies, provide profiling / interpretations).
-- Evaluate existing standards against requirements in order to identify gaps and take steps to reconcile.
-- Provide technical inputs for Interoperability Testing.
Inherent in Continua's work is the ability to craft solutions which not only work and are interoperable with different manufacturer's equipment, but for which there is assurance that health insurance and government programs will pay for the cost and use of HW/SW, etc of the tele-presense solution. That goes for all the regulatory issues current and future that may impact such solutions.
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ChakC
8/4/2010 4:14 AM EDT
The new alliance is brilliant. We expect to see a number of new electronic products coming to the consumer market in the next few years.
On the other hand, I think Microsoft can make use of its XBox network, and the Kinect to provide some healthcare service as well. I mean apart from the hardware development, we can put some effort on using some existing infrastructure.
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CamilleK
8/4/2010 4:30 AM EDT
I agree a bit with goafrit in that Cisco is a good partner to have by anyone on anything that has a telepresence hook. Perhaps Cisco and Philips Medical would be a good match? Cisco certainly has the existing infrastructure ChakC was suggesting and Philips would bring the medical devices to the effort.
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Himanshu_Gupta
8/4/2010 4:30 AM EDT
This is a significant move by Intel and GE in the area of healthcare industry. As this alliance is going to focus mainly on the tele-monitoring of the patients with chronic diseases, i think the alliance is still not complete. I would look for telecommunication partners (as goafrit suggested) and also software development partners. Does anyone know whether other healthcare companies are also planning to join this race to form alliances?
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KB3001
8/4/2010 5:49 AM EDT
Talking to an engineer in the healthcare sector recently about communication protocols between various equipments within and outwith hospitals, he said there is a move away from proprietary networks and protocols towards commodity technologies e.g. WiFi, Bluetooth.
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Rick Merritt
8/4/2010 2:34 PM EDT
CamilleK has a good point.
Other big partnerships could be in the offing here to capture what will someday be a significant market but will take a lot of investment in regulatory missionary work and knowledge of consumer systems, sensor networks and health care markets.
Philips, Cisco and many others are in the possible partner pool.
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Charles.Desassure
8/5/2010 1:37 PM EDT
Thank you for this article Dylan McGrath. This is great news. Anything that can contribute to the advancement and improvement of health technology is good. This is an area that Intel has over looked for too long.
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