Digital Medicine, Intel, and the Common Platform

In 1999, there was a research study called "The Future of Fun" that examined trends in digital entertainment across 100 homes in the United States and Europe. An unexpected surprise was found amongst the results. Users asked for ways to help manage the chronic health problems of elderly relations, especially those geographically separated by great distance. Eric Dishman, who spearheaded the study, shopped these results to Intel, efforts which eventually led to the genesis of the company's Digital Health Group. Now Dishman, a social scientist, is director of product research as a result.

The reason I am pointing all this out is simple. Intel is making a push to be the first on the ground offering integrated home health serves.

Via Rick Merritt at EETimes:

The Intel Health Guide is a PC customized to monitor vital signs and deliver health services to elderly patients managing chronic health conditions. Based on an Intel motherboard, the system is designed to be simple enough for technophobic users but robust enough to have received FDA Type 2 certification in August, a first for the company.

Intel provides the software to run both the new device and computers used by health care professionals to track and communicate with patients using it. The chip maker will even host those services and provide consulting to health care groups who want to set them up.

So here we have a fusion of two of my favorite topics: electronic medical records and care for chronic conditions. Attention to either of these subjects stands to reduce the overbearing cost of health care in this country; the combination of both could be a great boon.

With the Baby Boomers entering retirement at ever increasing rates, the market for this sort of device and interface will expand almost exponentially. In pure business terms, it is massive.

The move is an effort to define a common platform for the emerging field of remote health care expected to reach $5 billion in 2010 and explode to $34 billion by 2015, according to a recent report. It also marks a major expansion for Intel which has been studying the health care market for several years, but to date focused on defining systems and standards.

Looks like the game is changing. The Perfect Storm for health care reform spoken of by George C. Halvorson seems to be gaining strength!

SOURCE: "Intel rolls health care system and service- Chip maker hopes to set platform for personal care" 11/09/08
photo courtesy of k0a1a.et, used under its Creative Commons license

Gasoline: The New Health Care Cost

There are many factors that add to the cost of health care for the modern American. Now, as we ramp up for the Presidential race, another line item has been added to the bill: gasoline. With the shortage of qualified nurses and the current freeze on Medicare cost increases, this is an issue of increasing import.

Via Gary Gosselin's article in The Oakland Business Review as syndicated through MLive.com:

Home health care workers and businesses are adjusting services and spending as they adapt to high fuel prices.

Michigan home care workers make 11.5 million visits a year, driving an estimated 161.3 million miles, according to the National Association for Homecare & Hospice.

With many of the home care workers performing nonmedical functions, the pay is relatively low, in the $8- to $10-an-hour range.

The article includes interviews with numerous providers of home health care that detail many of the cutbacks being enacted in order to combat the high price of gas. From employees who can no longer afford to make it to work to additional surcharges on health care to cover fuel, it paints an uneasy picture of reduced services for the increasingly large ranks of elderly who require home-based care. As more and more Baby Boomers reach advanced age and gas prices continue to skyrocket, the impact of fuel prices will extend its reach farther and farther.

Home health care is predicted to increase thirty percent between now and 2012. This is on top of the increase from only 633,000 workers in the industry during 2000 to a whopping 913,300 in 2007. The spike in numbers here reminds me of the prices I see at the pump daily, steadily rising. With an overall 50% increase in gas prices since this time last year the trends do not seem heartening.

I guess a house call is out of the question?

SOURCE: "Some predict shakeout in Michigan as fuel prices hit home health care" 07/17/08
photo courtesy of Svadilfari, used under its Creative Commons license