GE launches $6B healthcare initiative

GE has announced plans to spend $6 billion in a new healthcare initiative focused not only on its core area of health IT, but also on healthcare innovation in general.

On the one hand, the company plans to spend $3 billion over the next six years to launch a minimum of 100 innovations that "lower cost, increase access and improve quality" by 15 percent, as well as, naturally, offering its services and performance improvement tools to get this done. As part of this broader effort, it will spend $1 billion on health information technology for rural and underserved areas.

The company will focus these innovations on four areas: information technology, the creation of affordable high-tech products, broadening access to the underserved and supporting consumer-driven healthcare.

Along the way, GE will also spend on creating wellness and healthy worksite programs for its own employees, designed to keep cost increases below the rate of inflation. (Hey, if you're going to fix the health system, fix your own healthcare too.)

Of course, GE is first and foremost a technology company, so there's little surprise that it's putting $2 billion of financing out there for technology, too.

To learn more about GE's efforts:
- read this GE press release

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