Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel, the world’s biggest semiconductor company, has attacked the healthcare industry for its resistance to technological change.

“It is the slowest moving industry in the world,” he told the Financial Times. “And one indicator of that is, of all the major industries in the world, it is the least penetrated by IT.”

Intel has targeted the health industry as an area of future growth and has also been lobbying hard for a change in healthcare strategies, notably through the efforts of Andy Grove, its former chief executive.

Mr Otellini backs his predecessor’s proposal that the least expensive option of keeping elderly people at home should be pursued.

“You want to keep people out of hospitals. The best thing to do is to keep them healthy and at home.”

He sees technology helping by providing systems for people to monitor their health at home and allowing remote monitoring, diagnosis and treatment through telemedicine.

“That’s the first crack in this monolith: to move your own healthcare to yourself.”

Intel has made little progress in penetrating the healthcare industry with its chips since it reorganised and created a Digital Health division in 2005.

Mr Otellini said the health sector was a “longer hike” than other Intel initiatives aimed at emerging markets and the digital home.

“The current projections in healthcare will break the bank of most mature economies if we don’t do something about it,” he said.

The Intel chief said the company’s drive to produce smaller, ultra-low power chips made him “extremely bullish” about its ability to win share in future mobile phone markets, an area in which it has struggled.