GE Healthcare and Intel have launched a joint venture to create a new healthcare company focused on telehealth and independent living, slated to be operational by the end of 2010.

The Center for Technology and Aging will provide grants to five healthcare organizations to test the efficacy and quality of remote home monitoring to improve chronic disease management and post-acute care.

Senior housing nonprofit Good Samaritan Society has received more than $8.15 million in grant funding over three years from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to deliver sensor technology and telehealth services to help rural seniors age in place.

Royal Philips Electronics has agreed with Project Hope, an international health education and humanitarian assistance organization, to place telemonitoring devices in select homes in rural areas of New Mexico.

Telehealth may not be a cure-all for what ails U.S. healthcare, but this is an area where health IT is already answering the call for increased access and lower-cost care delivery, powered by federal money and technology initiatives, and by improvements in wireless networks, data compression and remote patient monitoring.

Medical Care Technologies has completed the development of its Tele-Health Suite 6.17, a remote monitoring system for patients with congestive heart failure.

The California Telemedicine Pilot Project, sponsored by Cisco with the assistance of health organization Molina Healthcare, two community health centers in San Diego and the state of California, will connect more than 15 locations and provide health and wellness services to underserved communities throughout the state.

Denmark has rolled-out two telehealth pilot programs it now intends to implement on a nationwide basis over the next three years.