News Brief

Cheree Cleghorn, Editor

That’s all we can say. Hot damn.

Intel has just received FDA approval to sell an in-home health care monitoring system for chronically ill patients. The Intel system lets patients’ health care professionals monitor them and manage their care “remotely.” In other words, they won’t have to wait for an office appointment when their symptoms signal trouble.

The company says that it does not yet know if the system will save money, although it thinks it should.

That makes me have more confidence in them. They’re willing to say what they don’t know. They’re not promising cost-savings even though it would seem, just in terms of prevented complications, this ought to be a winner for patients and payers alike.

No one technology can solve all of our troubles. However, this tool appears, just in time, at the place where many of our worries meet. At the intersection of aging, clinican shortages, an alarming increase in chronic conditions and health care costs, no one has seen much possibility for real improvement. Maybe, this is it.

Let’s be cautious for a moment after the cheering (or swearing, to be precise).

The company says feedback from clinicians and elders has been good. In health care, though, you never know whether something will work as planned until lots of patients, physicians and others have experience with it.

However, the promise of this technology is so great that it can affect as many as a billion lives clinically.

In addition to those measurable results, there are other potential benefits. For example, how many spouses or adult children operate with a low-level of dread every day because they don’t know if today is the day they will get a telephone call about a complication, a fall or worse? Many, many, many millions.

If this system does work, hot damn will not have been language that is too strong nor too exuberant.

Stay tuned!

Reuters

“Intel Corp, the world’s biggest computer chip maker, on Thursday won clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell an in-home health monitoring system for patients with chronic conditions.

“The system, called Health Guide, combines an in-home patient device as well as online access that enables health care professionals to monitor patients and remotely manage care.

“It incorporates interactive tools for personalized care management and integrates vital sign collection, patient reminders, multimedia educational content and feedback, and communications tools such as video conferencing and e-mail.

“The Health Guide system can connect to specific models of wired and wireless medical devices, including blood pressure monitors, glucose meters, pulse oximeters, peak flow meters and weight scales. It also stores and displays collected information on a touch screen and sends to a secure host server, where health care professionals can review the information.