GE Healthcare puts $3 million into TRIL Centre for independent living technologies

Collaboration

The Technology Research for Independent Living (TRIL) Centre in Ireland has announced that a new industry partner, GE Healthcare, is putting in $3 million to expand the centre’s research programme.

TRIL was founded in January 2007 by Intel Corporation and the industrial development agency, IDA Ireland, to research the physical, cognitive and social consequences of ageing, and design technologies to help address them. The academic partners are University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin and the National University of Ireland in Galway.

Brian Caulfield, Academic Director of the TRIL Centre, said, GE’s “focus on innovative thinking and commitment to improving healthcare while reducing costs will make them a valuable contributor to our research efforts”.

A key goal of TRIL’s research is to enable older people to live independently in the homes of their choice for as long as possible, with the help of technology, and at the same time help ease the strain on global healthcare systems as the world’s population age.

Home health is a key business focus for GE Healthcare. The company recently acquired Living Independently Group, a provider of QuietCare, a passive activity monitoring system used to assist in the care of the elderly. The company is also leading a consortium of private and public sector organizations in a $5 million three-year home health research program funded by the Hungarian government.  

In April 2009, GE and Intel announced the formation of a healthcare alliance to develop and market technologies for independent living and chronic disease management.  As part of this alliance, GE Healthcare markets the Intel Health Guide in the US and UK. This is a personal health system that combines an in-home patient device with an online interface, allowing clinicians to monitor patients from their homes and manage care remotely.

Agnes Berzsenyi, General Manager of GE Healthcare’s Home Health business, said, “We are delighted to be part of the TRIL Centre and to be involved in the groundbreaking research being done there. The world is getting older and this is presenting enormous healthcare challenges in the care of elderly citizens and the prevention and management of chronic disease. We are looking forward to working with TRIL to drive innovation in this emerging area and ultimately transforming the lives of elderly citizens.”

Over the last three years, more than 600 older adults have been assessed in the TRIL Clinic and a large number have participated in the TRIL technology home deployment programme. The commitment of GE Healthcare will enable TRIL to expand the pool of participants and build on the accomplishments of the first three years.

TRIL started as a three-year, $30 million initiative bringing together a multidisciplinary team of more than 70 researchers. Through home-based behavioural assessment, the research teams identify behavioural markers such as changes in gait, speech patterns, or social interactions that indicate the onset of disease, then create and home-test technology to enable early disease detection, measurement and positive intervention by patients themselves or caregivers.

The technology is shared with other researchers in modular, reusable open-IP toolkits and is also used to inform the home health platform development of Intel and its collaborators.