GE, Intel form healthcare joint venture

Certainly the top story for Monday is the announcement that GE and Intel have created a 50/50 joint venture to create a new healthcare company focused on telehealth and independent living. The company will combine the assets of GE Home Health and Intel Digital Health, which include not only QuietCare and the Intel Home Health Guide (both well known to our readers), but also the Intel Reader text-to-speech assistive technology.  According to their joint statement, this new joint venture stems from their April 2009 alliance and 'common vision to use technology to bring more effective healthcare into millions of homes.' The new operation will be located in Sacramento CA and expected to start by end of year:  the CEO will be Louis Burns, currently VP/GM of Intel Digital Health, and chairman of the board will be Omar Ishrak, president of GE Healthcare. Release (PDF).

On the announcement webcast, Burns commented that the joint venture would be 'more agile out from under both parents', but would draw on the resources of both in developing current and new technologies; Ishrak predicted a 'business model change'. Current clients will continue to be supported.  To be determined:  the joint venture's name; the effect on current brands; the management structure; revenue projections; from what areas/companies the expected 'hundreds of employees' will come (QuietCare is still based in NYC with GE staff in Waukesha, WI and Hungary; Intel is in Santa Clara well southwest of Sacramento), and what the impact will be on current partners/reseller relationships (Direct Supply and others for QuietCare in US; AMAC, GTSI, Fujitsu (Holland), Orange Healthcare (France), Telefonica (Spain) for Intel.

And what can this possibly mean....?

• GE's rivals will be looking at this as it affects their desires to be in the global home healthcare market.  Is our 'pointer to the future' today a Philips-Tunstall or Bosch-Telefonica alliance/JV?  There are numerous larger companies on the sidelines in wireless and mobile health (Alcatel-Lucent, anyone?).  And will this prompt companies in India and the rest of Asia to wake up and step up?
• This will worry the many smaller companies--and their investors--fighting to establish themselves as to how much time they have to achieve real revenue and profitability.  Will this new company help by leading the way or will it take all the air out of the room?  Will this joint venture be eager to acquire promising technologies?  (Comments from the AgeTek Alliance here?)
• Will the current Intel and GE systems finally find their way into the home?  One notes that Intel Home Health has mainly been placed in pilots with an institutional cast, and QuietCare's in assisted living facilities.
• Will this help solve the Four Big Questions:  who will pay for the technology; what rate will they pay; where does the data go, and who takes action?
• Does this mean opportunity for smaller companies to develop R&D, data processing and software for larger companies/JVs?
• Is the 'business model change' a little larger than just this JV?  We return to Intel CEO Paul Otellini's sketch of the future:  "a competitive personal health work force of 'virtual care' clinicians who are nationally trained, credentialed and licensed to provide cost-effective, efficient care services". Presumably they would take charge of all this data.  Would they be a 'clinician corps', a call center or mobile?

Editors Steve and Donna wrote and opined about his article presenting this (almost) exactly one year ago. For those of us who read press releases like tea leaves, note that the first quote in the release, paragraph 4, is by Mr. Otellini.

We'll be adding to this as we go along, so return for updates.  Comments welcome!