Launched in the UK in November 2008, the Intel Health Guide is a comprehensive personal health system that combines an in-home patient device - the Intel® Health Guide PHS6000 - with an online interface - the Intel® Health Care Management Suite - allowing clinicians to monitor patients in their homes and manage care remotely. The NHS Lothian programme is the latest to utilise the Intel Health Guide and deliver care to patients with chronic conditions in their homes.

"As the worldwide population of people over the age of 65 and the number of people living with one or more chronic condition rapidly increases, we believe that there is an increasing need for new models of care," said Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of the Intel Digital Health Group. "Intel has spent years researching the needs of patients and their families and is developing products, such as the Intel Health Guide, to help extend care from hospital to home. The NHS Lothian telehealth programme demonstrates our commitment and ability to support telehealth programmes across the UK."

The 400 unit programme is part of an ongoing collaboration between NHS Lothian and the Scottish Government, implemented by Intel and Tunstall. It follows a small-scale pilot of 30 patients with COPD. This condition affects more than 3 million people and is the second largest cause of emergency hospital admissions in the UK.[1] Chronic conditions such as COPD can be characterised by flare-ups that often lead to a hospital visit, but the initial telehealth pilot demonstrated how these can be monitored and controlled from home by assessing symptoms and any change in patterns using the Intel Health Guide. The large scale programme will start with 200 COPD patients and will later include those with other chronic conditions including cardiac diseases and diabetes across Edinburgh and the Lothian regions. A number of patients included in the programme will be enrolled in a randomised control trial being conducted by the University of Edinburgh. Results of this research will be available in 2010.

"We are delighted to be at the heart of this pioneering work through our telehealth programme," said Martin Egan, eHealth Director, NHS Lothian, "We learned a great deal from the initial telehealth pilot with the Intel Health Guide and this has helped us with our preparations as we begin rolling out the programme to 400 patients."

The Intel Health Guide promotes greater patient engagement and more efficient care by enabling communication between patients and their healthcare professionals, and by providing clinicians with access to the most current, actionable data for patient care. This solution offers interactive tools for personalised healthcare management and includes vital sign collection, patient reminders, surveys, multimedia educational content, plus feedback and communication tools, such as video conferencing and alerts. Clinicians have ongoing access to data so they can better manage each patient's conditions, while patients benefit from medical care in the comfort of their own home.

Pilots involving cardiologists and patients with congestive heart failure have been completed in The Netherlands using the Intel Health Guide in a collaboration between the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Institute for Prevention and Telemedicine and Intel.

"Initiatives such as the Lothian programme offer excellent benefits to patients by allowing them more control of their condition, while still being supervised by a clinician," said Dr. Brian McKinstry, a GP in West Lothian, who was involved with the small-scale pilot. "This ensures continuous monitoring of the patient, provides added reassurance and more frequent patient and clinician contact. This telehealth programme aims to highlight the early exacerbation of the patient's condition and enable earlier treatment intervention; thereby preventing the condition worsening and reducing the need for unplanned hospital admissions."

In addition to its work with Lothian, Intel is collaborating with healthcare delivery organisations to develop unique patient care plans as well as multimedia educational content for patients. In the UK, Intel has worked with the Map of Medicine which developed care protocols from its existing pathways for use on the Intel Health Guide to help patients, and their clinicians, effectively manage their condition at home.

Tunstall Healthcare Group, a leading provider of telecare and telehealth solutions, is the first official market channel partner for the Intel Health Guide in the UK. Intel is also currently working with other leading market channel partners to bring the Intel Health Guide to PCTs and other healthcare organisations across the UK. The Intel Health Guide is a regulated telehealth device that carries the CE mark under the EU Medical Device Directive.

For more information on the Intel Health Guide, visit http://www.intel.com/corporate/healthcare/emea/eng/healthguide/

To learn more about Intel in healthcare, go to www.intel.com/healthcare.

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† The Intel Health Guide requires a broadband connection in the patient's home to enable communications with the care team and back-end data hosting; is designed for use by healthcare professionals and their patients and should only be used under the guidance of a healthcare professional; and is not intended for emergency medical communications or real-time patient monitoring.