Checking Intel into hospitals
Published: 19 Sep 2005 18:20 BST
...do is get our industry focused on healthcare issues. We think there is a very big growth opportunity for our industry. We're not doing it just to feel good about it. You have to be patient and listen to understand the issues, but we think the opportunity is huge.
The numbers associated with healthcare are pretty staggering. Some estimate that 15 percent of the world's GDP goes to healthcare and could reach 25 percent by 2015.
The market size is undeniable. You can't deny that millions and millions of people are living longer. That wave is coming at us. We were looking at some data on Japan. Today for every three people working, there's one retired, and it's heading toward less than two.
In the US, it's five people working and it's going down to three, over a longer period. Twenty-five percent of the GDP? That's not doable.
IT companies have tried to break into the healthcare market before, and it didn't take off like a wildfire. Is there anything that you've seen in the past that explains what went wrong?
It really comes back to the ability to drive standards: to get agreement and then let the economics work. When you get standards you get massive innovation around those standards, and then you get massive economic benefit. The attempts before have been spotty and not organised.
Now, it's not going to be easy. I've been in pre-ops and post-ops in the same building, and all the [computer] systems in pre-op are completely different than they are in post-op. I've been in post-op where there are three separate systems with three different interfaces to take the same vital signs.
Why can't the human interface be consistent? Why can't the connectivity be consistent? There are a lot of simple examples where there is unnecessary differentiation.
The Sensitron system is a great system. [Sensitron has created a PC on a medical cart that gathers and stores patient data.] They looked at the legacy system and said, "How can we do that with Bluetooth and Linux?"
They took how doctors and nurses work in the world today and then automated it, so they wouldn't have to write it down and write it down and write it down.
Are there cultural hurdles you'll have to overcome with the medical community. Doctors seem to go into these trials almost jaundiced, making comments like, "What, you want me to use a Pocket PC to conduct rounds?"
Yeah, there is a cultural aspect of this. They're highly motivated people for the most part that are in that business because, one could argue, they...
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