Intel's Health Guide supports a new model for health care

Europe's population is ageing and the number of people living with chronic conditions is threatening to overwhelm its already stretched healthcare systems. New models are needed to help keep people out of expensive hospitals and care homes and to care for them in their own homes; which is anyway where they want to be.

Intel believes that digital technologies have a key role to play in these new models. In 2008, it launched the Intel Health Guide; a personal health system that combines an in-home patient device with an online interface that allows medical staff to monitor their vital signs and communicate with them.

NHS Lothian ran a small-scale pilot of the guide for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In February, it announced a 400 unit programme that will be one of the largest telehealthcare programmes in the UK.

NHS Lothian and local GPs are extremely positive about the development, which has also proved popular with patients. In the video case study, patient Alex McLachlan explains how it has brought increased peace of mind. "We would not really be without it now," his wife Hannah says.

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