Looks like the Wall Street Journal's rumor mill piece was right: As we reported earlier this week, Intel and GE are planning to work together to market home-health monitoring solutions leveraging wireless sensors that aim to prevent falls, increase medication compliance and treat sleep apnea. The companies plan to invest $250 million over the next five years for research and development into this emerging market. Intel and GE predict that the home-health monitoring market will grow to $7.7 billion by 2012, which means it would more than double from today's $3 billion home-health monitoring market.
"We think this partnership offers the potential to lower costs by keeping people out of hospitals while giving health professionals the data they need," GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt said during the companies' joint press conference in New York.
As part of the deal, GE Healthcare will sell and market the Intel Health Guide, which is a personal health record (PHR) for patients that also includes a direct communication link to their doctors.
