Checking Intel into hospitals
Published: 19 Sep 2005 18:20 BST
...feel strong about what they are doing. Oftentimes when new things are thrown at them and they don't see the benefit, they'll say, "I don't want to deal with that. I am trying to take care of patients. I am not trying to learn how to use these new systems."
Does Intel have to work with an entirely new set of equipment manufacturers, or is this the kind of market where you can team up with Dell or HP?
It depends on the business. There are a lot of hospitals trying to figure out how to automate. They will buy servers and clients and stuff, and they buy those from the traditional customers. There are some new players we are not ready to talk about yet.
Some of the prototypes Intel has shown off are modifications of typical PC products like servers or tablets. Do you also think you might move toward providing chips for classic medical equipment like MRI systems?
We already do that in some systems. If they can get more standards there, it's going to be more feasible. Standardisation would allow more equipment to be deployed. If you go to a community hospital, they should have access to the same things a teaching hospital does. We're talking to the bigger players in that space: GE, Philips, Siemens.
How do you evangelise yourself in the medical community? Are you teaming up with key hospitals or the pharmaceutical community?
We're doing all that. We've been nine months quiet. St. Louis (KC) hospital is an example of that. They have RFID tracking, and why is it important? I don't know if you've ever been in the hospital and tried to find somebody. They should be able to tell you at the front desk, "He's down in MRI and will be back in 30 minutes, so why don't you go to the cafeteria and we will call you when he's back in his room?"
There's a guy in our office who recently kept setting off the alarms in a maternity ward by standing too close to the elevator with his new baby. The baby had an RFID tag.
Right, and that's a simple integration of technology. We run massive amounts of RFID in our factories today. If you put the RFID in patient bracelets — now they have bar codes — you don't have to move the patient to get near it.
You've shown off prototype tablets for conducting rounds. What sort of feedback are you getting from doctors and nurses with those devices?
Those are wooden models.
So they aren't real?
They are really wooden. What we did is...
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