GE and Intel form Healthcare Alliance

GE Healthcare will sell and market the Intel Health Guide, a care management tool designed for healthcare professionals who manage patients with chronic conditions. With the dramatic increase of people with chronic conditions and an aging population there is a need to extend care from the hospital to the home. GE Healthcare and Intel are helping to address these pressing issues. The market for telehealth and home health monitoring is predicted to grow from $3 billion in 2009 to an estimated $7.7 billion by 2012. GE Chairman of the Board and CEO Jeff Immelt and Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini announced the alliance today, along with an investment of more than $250 million over the next five years for the research and product development of home-based health technologies. Key elements of the announcement include: * Global product research and development alliance: GE Healthcare and Intel will work together, combining their complementary skill sets and extensive research resources to accelerate the innovation and commercialization of next-generation home health technologies. Both companies also plan to expand their current development programs in home health and independent living technologies to include new areas such as fall prevention, medication compliance, sleep apnea, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and personal wellness monitoring. The combination of Intel’s leading capabilities in ethnographic research and technology development combined with GE’s world-class expertise and global distribution strengths in healthcare IT, electronic medical records, critical care and passive monitoring is a strong strategic fit. * Commercial business agreement: GE Healthcare will sell and market the Intel Health Guide, a personal health system, in the United States. GE Healthcare’s capabilities in disease management, and its distribution reach in the healthcare sector will help drive understanding of the benefits of this innovative technology, which includes patients’ self-monitoring of health status and a direct communications channel to healthcare professionals. Participants at the signing ceremony [left to right]: Louis J. Burns, Vice President & General Manager, Digital Health Group - Intel Corporation; Omar Ishrak, President & CEO - GE Healthcare Systems; Jeffrey R. Immelt, Chairman & CEO - GE; Paul S. Otellini, President and Chief Executive Officer - Intel Corporation; at the signing ceremony in New York, 2nd April 2009. Both companies recently announced their involvement in externally funded independent living and home health research programs; GE Healthcare is leading a consortium of private and public sector organizations in a $5 million three-year home health research program funded by the Hungarian government. Intel and the Irish Development Agency have established a $30 million TRIL Centre (Technology Research for Independent Living), bringing together world-class industry and academic experts to research independent living technologies.