Intel, GE to Invest $250M in Medical Devices

GE Healthcare and Intel Corporation are partnering and using $250 million over the next five years to develop technology that would let doctors remotely monitor and diagnose patients.

The Fairfield, Conn., and Santa Clara, Calif.-basedpowerhouses hope to create products that help trim healthcare costs and save elderly patients a trip to the doctor by letting physicians monitor them remotely.

GE Healthcare, the world’s largest supplier of digital health record systems, will sell and market the Intel Health Guide, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved last year. The machine collects vital signs and information and then sends the data to doctors. It also acts as a videoconferencing and e-mail link.

Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini and GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt predict the market for this type of technology will increase to $7.7 billion by 2012, from $3 billion this year.

Intel has been creating healthcare products for the past four years as part of a plan to expand into areas other than computer chips. GE has its own health care products, too—the company’s GE Quiet Care system monitors patients’ vital signs remotely using electronic sensors.

Both companies also are involved in home health research and independent living programs, which are externally funded. GE Healthcare is heading up a consortium of private and public sector groups in a $5 million, three-year home health research program funded by the Hungarian government. Intel and the Irish Development Agency have created a $30 million Technology Research for Independent Living Centre to research independent living technologies.