Available in the UK since November 2008, the Intel Health Guide is Intel's first regulated medical device that allows healthcare providers to customise care, gather timely information about the status of their patients and collect and prioritise patient data. The system engages patients in their own care by providing them with an easy-to-use, intuitive way to have timely interaction with their care providers and receive relevant self-care education. This will help to minimise time-consuming and costly clinic/surgery visits.

"We believe that deploying technology in the home can help pave the way for a more personalised, cost-effective healthcare system and we will continue to innovate and develop products that achieve this," said Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of the Intel Digital Health Group. "With more than 80 percent of healthcare spending focused on patients with one or more chronic diseases, we need to work together to make dramatic changes to how care is delivered."

Because of the Intel Health Guide's key differentiating features such as video-conferencing and customisable content, customers have been able to easily integrate it into their existing activities in a way that benefits their particular business the most. Patients and clinicians can now have access to the Intel Health Guide through a mix of connectivity options. This is particularly important given that in the UK around a fifth of the population live in rural areas, where access to healthcare services can be limited, and approximately one-third do not currently have broadband access.

The Intel Health Guide’s enhanced connectivity will also give older people more flexible options for maintaining their health from home. In addition to the standard cable/DSL broadband support available at launch, wireless connectivity through mobile networks including 3G is now available, building on the capabilities of standard broadband by offering high data transfer bandwidth with flexibility in location. With the use of a simple and inexpensive modem adaptor, older people without broadband access will also be able to measure their vital signs and send data to their clinicians automatically across a residential phone line#.

Informed by over a decade of Intel’s ethnographic research, the Intel Health Guide is designed with the needs of the elderly population in mind and is used by healthcare professionals to manage their patients at home, and is not currently available for general consumer purchase. Intel has staffed a team of clinical experts to provide a range of professional services to healthcare organisations, allowing them to successfully integrate the personal health system into their current disease management programmes and models of care.

For further information, please visit:

• The Intel Health Guide, www.intel.co.uk/healthguide
• Intel in healthcare, www.intel.com/healthcare

Related news articles:

• Intel's Profile

About Intel
Intel [NASDAQ: INTC], the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom and blogs.intel.com.

Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

* The Intel Health Guide requires an internet connection to enable communications with the patient's care team and back-end data hosting. The Intel Health Guide is intended for use by patients under the guidance of a healthcare professional and is not intended for emergency medical communications or real-time patients monitoring.

# Subject to availability and network coverage. Broadband connection is required for video-conferencing.