Medical Software – Intel Health Guide Premiered Today
Thanks to MedGadget
So I had already wrote about Medical Devices from the Connected Health Seminar, and asked if any company had thought about the end user.
Intel Health did. They have just about absolutely nailed what people are looking for in a telemonitoring device. It was premiered today, in Santa Clara, and will be undergoing trials in California and maybe Tennessee. More info can be found on the Wall Street Journal, Medgadget, and the Intel Health Site, while the video of the premiere can be found at http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=52863. (Unsure if I’m allowed to put this up, so let me know if I need to take this down). You can see it in action between 18:00 and 30:00, with some great insights into why Intel did what they did.
They spent over 2 years talking to experts in the field about what they want, co-operated with The Mayo Clinic to create educational material, and had anthropologists and technologists work together to create this product.
First up the amazingly great things:
- Holy heck! This system is actually readable by elderly people! Large fonts, colors that don’t disappear when people go color-blind. (using mostly blues – no yellows or reds.)
- A Touch screen! Great! People don’t need to know which button does what, they just need to touch what they want! It works for the IPhone, it’ll work for this.
- The patient gets feedback on their surveys and the measurements that they take. People want to know if they are doing well, and want to be told what they can do if they are not doing so well.
- The “teachable moment” content! If a patient answers a survey in a way that could be a problem, automatically a video will appear (after the patient asks for it) and tells them things they can do. This automatic teaching can reinforce teaching that our nurses do.
- It’s easy to use! I have a hard enough time trying to get nurses to want to use technology, let alone get them to want others to use it. If it’s something the nurses like, then it’ll be easier to get the patients to like it.
Second, the good things:
- The home office system is all in IE, which is great, as it can hopefully be put into other website systems. Will have to ask about this.
- The web cam visits. This makes getting in touch with acute patients very quick and very easy. The web cam interface is extremely easy.
- You can change surveys, add your own educational material (!) and create web cam visits using the IE home office back end, which looks very user friendly.
- This system will make it much easier for our nurses to schedule their days.
Finally, things that could get better:
- Making the system only use broadband is great for the future, but unfortunate for the present. With over 30 of the 351 municipalities ( June 2007, from http://www.mtpc.org/broadband/data0807.pdf) without a Broadband ISP and many more either in underserved municipalities, the areas where the web cam visits could do the most good are also the ones that you can’t use the system in. This is not really a fault of the system (and another POTS version will be released in January next year) but it is unfortunate, and is most likely the reason we won’t be using it. Another reason is the 2nd bad point.
- Most people over the age of 60 simply don’t want or need a broadband connection. How many people have parents or grandparents that use the internet? I don’t think the company I work for will be able to persuade people to get broadband for a telemonitoring system.
- The web cam visit phone ring. Ugh. I hope the user can change it. First time I heard it, I thought it was an error beep.
Well, I’ve hit a page, so I think I’ve gushed over the new Phillips Intel Health Guide enough. I’m really looking forward to hearing about the pilot projects this is going through, and the pricing of the system. I’m hoping the POTS version has just as much functionality as the Broadband system. I can understand if the web cam visits are not in the POTS system, but if a voice call visit was in the system, that would still be amazing.
