U. of Pittsburgh Med Ctr. starts $20M joint venture with GE

Though a not-for-profit organization, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has a portfolio of deals with technical organizations that would make many commercial organizations weep with envy. Recent partnerships include an agreement in which it invested with web-based clinical data sharing company dbMotion, an eight-year, $402 million deal with IBM to jointly develop healthcare software and systems, and a $300 million deal with Alcatel under which the two will work on first responder technology.

This week, UPMC's most recent deal is a $20 million joint venture with General Electric to launch a new imaging company. The new imaging company, to be named Omnyx LLC, will create a "virtual microscope" used to scan and store images electronically. It will be used to digitize the slides analyzed by pathologists.

Perhaps this track record of innovation justifies the CEO's drawing a record $3.95 million in total compensation for fiscal 2007, up 19.7 percent from the year before and well above the $1.2 million average for hospital systems with more than $1 billion in revenue.

To learn more about UPMC's status:
- read this Wall Street Journal blog item

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