Regular readers will recall that in May it was announced that Northern Ireland ’s Department of Health and Social Services was to issue a tender worth £46 million for the supply of telehealth services (the Remote Telemonitoring Northern Ireland (RTNI) Service) to cover 5,000 people by 2011. (Telecare Aware item)
Browsing, as one does, the website of Belfast’s European Centre for Connected Health, I was struck by the companies now long listed for this substantial, high-profile project. Count how many have real-world experience of delivering on-the-ground telehealth services. The mystery is, how did most of these companies get onto the long list?
Here’s the list:
- Bayer Healthcare LLC Diabetes Care (Viterion Telehealthcare)
- British Telecommunications plc (BT)
- Fujitsu Services Limited
- Hewlett Packard Limited
- Humana Europe Limited
- iSoft plc
- Philips Healthcare Company
- Robert Bosch GmbH
- Steria Limited
- Tunstall/Fold/S3 (TF3)