Providing professional healthcare services to general practitioners directly to their home

The Health track Professional Service in Home (HPS in Home) was aimed at providing professional healthcare services to general practitioners directly to their home. This was achieved by utilising the Sky Digital TV platform to deliver the service as an interactive television (iTV) application. Access to the service was initially limited to a small group of pilot users, with the aim of evaluating the technical and financial feasibility of such a service. The HPS in Home service planned ultimately to meet many of the continuing medical education needs of healthcare professionals and to provide both future proofing and product evolution for further application developments. The HPS in Home interactive television service was delivered to the television sets of medical professionals via the Sky digital television system. Access to the service was controlled via the conditional access systems built into the standard digital set top box (STB) deployed in the UK. The marriage of a well known and easily accessible delivery mechanism (i.e. consumer based television equipment) with professional training material and information broadcasting services provides a rapid and cost effective means of connecting medical general practitioners with the pharmaceutical industry and other service providers in the sector.