GE splurges on health

General Electric (GE) says it will spend $6 billion between now and 2015 on healthcare technology, from portable ultrasound machines to low-cost X-ray equipment, states Google News.

GE chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt says: “Healthcare needs new solutions. We must innovate with smarter processes and technologies that help doctors and hospitals deliver better healthcare to more people at a lower cost.”

The HealthyImagination programme aims to reduce health care costs by 15% and improve access to quality healthcare.

IBM has opened a laboratory in Beijing, where it is working with hospitals and rural medical cooperatives on technologies that will advance healthcare reform by the Chinese government, reports Record Online.

Experts at IBM's new Healthcare Industry Solution Lab, one of eight IBM labs in China, will work with healthcare providers to adopt digital medical records using software that integrates health information with financial information.

Using Web 2.0 technology, or cloud computing, medical personnel can discuss a patient's condition in real-time and collaborate using common data and information.

In the future, it's possible that medicine will become less one-size-fits-most, and more personalised, based on proof of what works best for you, writes WTN News.

Healthcare industry initiatives driving advances in personalised medicine include technologies linking informatics with genotype and phenotype data to produce custom-built solutions to illnesses.

Milwaukee-based Aurora Health Care highlighted two of its programmes through which data is used to build a more personal healthcare system for patients at WTN Media's seventh annual Digital Healthcare Conference last week.