Intel’s New Health Guide System Makes It Possible for Doctors to Treat Patients in Their Own Homes

You can do so many things on the internet in today’s virtual environment, such as order your medications or a birthday gift, shop for the perfect outfit, and chat with friends. Now, visiting with your doctor is an option as well. Recently, the United States FDA gave Intel their approval to market their home monitoring system, Health Guide, which allows doctors and their medical staff to monitor patient’s medical status virtually, at their finger tips. This new system allows the elderly and seriously ill to avoid sometimes stressful, unwanted trips out, in order to receive prompt proper medical care.

There are probably very few people that actually look forward to doctor visits, but medical treatment is very important and in many cases, a matter or life or death. Many doctor’s visits are met with long waits, costly visits and germs. For those with critical conditions that need to be monitored more closely, being able to be treated from home allows for comfort as well as more immediate attentive care. With this new system, patients would have an avenue to talk to their doctor or provide vitals at any time. Health Guide PHS6000's along with an online interface, the Intel Health Care Management Suite, allows medical staffs and doctors to monitor patients in their homes and manage care remotely. Intel’s system has a touch-screen laptop and interface that is simple for even the more technically challenged patients and medically unaware person to use. The touch-screen has large icons along with voice prompts, and text that is read aloud as it appears on the screen.

Patients are provided step-by-step instructions on using the computer. The laptop has the capability to sound a reminder chime daily at a set time, as a reminder to the patients. When the patient responds, they will be run through several questions and prompts that can involve taking vital signs such as, blood pressure, heart rate, or sugar levels. Blood pressure cuffs and glucose measuring tools are conveniently connected to the computer. It is left up to the patient to input their needed medical information and to follow any medical instructions that are given.

The Health Guide system is being marketed to chronically ill patients first, allowing for more flexible evaluation times and even preventing some unneeded doctors visits. Once the information is collected it is stored and can be viewed by health care professionals through an FTP secure site and viewed at their convenience. Mariah Scott, head of sales and marketing for Intel's Digital Health Group, said "They can then manage their patients and only need to intervene if something is not normal. That's one of the aspects of cost efficiency and labor productivity we hope to see with this system. Instead of needing to call every patient every day, they can see that data in a dashboard and only need to intervene if there's an issue or concern. That should help nurses or case managers, move to more of a management by exception approach."

Intel’s new Health Care system can also be used to help educate patients. The company has licensed material from medical organizations including the Mayo Clinic and the American Heart Association, to provide the application's medical assessments, evidence-based treatment guidelines, educational multimedia content, and they are working to gather other educational content, for other conditions, with several other medical organizations. Pilot programs have begun through Aetna, Scan Health Plan, Erickson Retirement Communities, and the Providence Medical Group in Oregon, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the new system on Intel’s patients.

"Health care is an area where getting and gathering the right information, and getting decisions made in a timely matter can make an enormous difference in patient care. We hope this technology helps with that," Scott said in an interview. Patients with chronic illnesses add up to at least 1 billion patients who could potentially benefit from the Intel system. The company plans to market the product to insurance companies, governments, and health care providers initially.