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To: Claudia Benson who wrote (873)	8/24/2000 10:19:03 AM
From: Eric Fader	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3785

And this morsel from the Financial Times, about a great company in this space: INSIDE TRACK: Medtronics gives hearts online boost: TECHNOLOGY PACEMAKERS: The cardiac aids maker is to link patients with doctors and healthcare services via the net, says Christopher B Financial Times, Aug 21, 2000, 669 words Like a plot from The X-Files, cardiac patients could soon be transmitting their vital heart rhythms over the internet. A new wireless device will allow doctors to monitor patients hundreds of miles away and collect data on their hearts. In some cases, patients could be connected over a 24-hour period and have their vital signs monitored at a central communications hub. Doctors could warn them about any irregularities in their heartbeat or even about an impending heart attack. That, at least, is the vision of Medtronic. And the US pacemaker and medical equipment maker, hopes to make it happen in the next 18 months. The Minneapolis-based company plans to build a secure network linking heart patients who have its pacemakers and defibrillators implanted inside them to their doctors and other healthcare services. Its new Chronicle pacemakers and defibrillators, which use an electric shock to get a malfunctioning heart beating properly, will also be network appliances that send data to the network so that doctors can log on and work with the device. As the world's leading pacemaker manufacturer, Medtronic makes pacemakers that stimulate the heart to beat in a proper rhythm and also small implantable defibrillators that can store and deliver a jolting shock when a heart attack is imminent. It controls just more than half of the Dollars 4bn cardiac-control device market. The company has recently decided to change its strategy, moving from being a pure medical device maker to a health management company. Medtronic took its existing product, and used it to reshape the company. The strategy involves turning dumb devices into smart ones, much as personal computers were transformed in the early 1990s to take advantage of networks. William George, chief executive of Medtronic, says the new strategy is the result of the increasing complexity and capabilities of microprocessors in their implantable devices. The company began to look at their products as information technology devices, says Mr. George, and realised the devices could easily be hooked up to the internet. "We could wring more value out of each one of our devices over the lifetime of each patient," he says. The company has also recently formed Medtronic.com, an e-business arm, to assemble the network, hardware, software and systems, for which it has entered partnerships with Microsoft and International Business Machines. Medtronic initially plans to invest Dollars 230m in the systems, with capital spending on the project approved until 2003. Within a year, Medtronic expects to offer free IBM computers to participating physicians and clinics. It hopes to claw its investment back through software based on Windows 2000. The Medtronic system will include transmitters that can read a patient's heart device remotely; eventually portable and wireless devices will be available. Doctors will then be able to compile data remotely from electrocardiograms, check how the device is working and whether a patient is taking their medication. They can reprogramme the device over the internet or call the patient in for a visit. "Think of it like your (home) security system," says Mr George. "Somebody breaks in . . . and if it's a certain alarm they send the police immediately." The sort of service Medtronic is offering to cardiac patients could increase the market for cardiac-control devices to Dollars 13bn by 2005, according to Mr Lothson. Medtronic could capture 75 per cent of that, he believes. Some observers even see the network itself becoming more valuable than the devices, like phone companies which once sold phones, but discovered the network service was worth more. Heart disease remains the number-one killer in the US, causing almost 1m deaths per year. Last year, one in five Americans, or 59m people, had some kind of heart problem, costing society a total of Dollars 327bn a year. The concept of the cardiac network, and claims about its capacity to cut costs have been met with some scepticism on Wall Street and among health insurers. Nevertheless, Medtronic argues that such a network would allow a patient to skip a costly doctor's office visit, hospital stays, or even major surgery, if the heart device could be programmed and monitored over the internet. The cost of managing a patient with a pacemaker can be as little as Dollars 100 a year, but caring for a patient who has suffered heart failure can cost Dollars 25,000. "One day people will be able to log on and (doctors will be able to) check a variety of conditions, from lifestyle changes all the way to 'you've only got 10 minutes to live,'" says Mr. George. Copyright © The Financial Times Limited search.ft.com