Intel Announces Increased Momentum for Personalized Care Management at Home with the Intel® Health Guide

GTSI Corp., an enterprise technology solutions and services provider, is the latest addition to the list of Intel Health Guide authorized resellers. In the United States, Intel has added new customers including the Veterans Affairs (VA) Rural Resource Center Western Region, Memorial Hospital and Health System in South Bend, Ind.; Nightingale Home Healthcare of Indiana, Inc.; and all seven independently owned offices of the Home Care Group. This range of customers – from government to hospital and home health organizations – reflects the Intel Health Guide's versatility for a variety of clinical workflows and users including chronically ill patients, clinicians and family caregivers.

The Intel Health Guide is an FDA-cleared remote patient monitoring system designed to help address the challenges of chronic conditions for patients, their family caregivers and the health care professionals responsible for their care. Health care professionals are able to customize care, gather timely information about the status of their patients, and collect and prioritize data. The Intel Health Guide offers patients an intuitive way to have timely interaction with their care providers and receive relevant self-care education, helping to minimize time-consuming and costly office visits. The system's customizable educational content capability also makes it an ideal vehicle for delivering information to support family caregivers. Patients and their health care teams can connect via multiple connectivity options including cable/DSL broadband, cellular wireless and residential phone service.

"We believe that shifting non-urgent care from the hospital to the home through technologies such as the Intel Health Guide is central to achieving a more personalized and cost-effective health care system," said Mariah Scott, director of sales and marketing for the Intel Digital Health Group. "Working with these organizations allows us to target our innovations across all home health settings and drive the most efficient care management available."

For GTSI, a provider of enterprise IT solutions and services that streamline technology lifecycle management, the Intel Health Guide is an ideal addition to its current product portfolio. After 26 years of delivering health care solutions to the FDA, VA and hospitals across the country, GTSI's reselling of the Intel Health Guide will extend its reach into private households, ensuring that health care organizations are equipped to manage chronic diseases in the home in a cost-efficient manner.

"By delivering the Intel Health Guide, GTSI will enable improved patient care and help address the challenges of a worldwide chronic disease epidemic," said GTSI CEO Jim Leto. "Our array of services around the Intel Health Guide will help health care providers integrate the technology to enhance the patient experience and allow for truly personalized care."

The Intel Health Guide's key differentiating features, such as video conferencing, customizable care protocols and educational multimedia content, have also enabled a range of new customers to deploy the system. Three new customers – Memorial Hospital and Health System in South Bend, Nightingale Home Healthcare of Indiana and the seven independently owned offices of the Home Care Group – will deploy the Intel Health Guide to chronically ill patients in need of more personalized care from the comfort of their own homes. At Memorial, the Intel Health Guide will be piloted in high-risk obstetrics patients with gestational diabetes and preeclampsia who have been discharged from the hospital setting. Ongoing clinician monitoring of these patients' vital signs and communicating with them via video conferencing is intended to catch potential health crises in advance and also prevent unnecessary re-hospitalizations.

Nightingale Home Healthcare of Indiana, which currently manages the largest number of patients monitored under a telemedicine program in Indiana and the Midwest, will use the Intel Health Guide to monitor patients with heart disease, renal disease, metabolic syndrome and orthopedic disabilities. Its goal in deploying the Intel Health Guide is to put the patient first and ensure the highest quality of care, which they expect will lead to reduced costs and fewer re-hospitalizations.

At the Home Care Group – which includes seven independently owned offices in Florida, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan – nurses will use the Intel Health Guide to monitor patients with diabetes, congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to ensure that they can live independently in the comfort of their homes for as long as possible.

Informed by over a decade of Intel's ethnographic research, the Intel Health Guide is designed with the needs of the elder population in mind and is used by health care professionals to manage their patients at home. It is not currently available for general consumer purchase. Intel has staffed a team of clinical experts to provide a range of professional services to health care organizations, allowing them to successfully integrate the personal health system into their current disease management programs and models of care.

For information on how to purchase this product, visit www.intel.com/healthcare/ps/healthguide/wtb.htm. For more information on the Intel Health Guide, visit www.intel.com/healthcare/telehealth. To learn more about Intel in health care, go to www.intel.com/healthcare.