[From the December 8, 2011 issue of iHealthBeat produced by the California Healthcare Foundation.]
General Electric and Microsoft have announced a joint venture to create a “Windows-like” software platform that the companies say will defragment health IT and reduce U.S. health costs by $500 billion annually, the New York Times‘ “Bits” reports (Lohr, “Bits,” Times, 12/8).
Venture Details
The yet-to-be named initiative — which will be formed in the first half of 2012 — will integrate Microsoft’s health management software with GE’s clinical software and health information exchange products (Layne, Bloomberg/Seattle Times, 12/7).
The project will be based near Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash. The companies expect the initiative to employ about 700 staff from both companies (Lee, Modern Healthcare, 12/8).
Michael Simpson — vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare IT — will serve as CEO of the new venture (Goedert, Health Data Management, 12/8).
Project Goals
According to “Bits,” the project aims to create a standardized operating system platform that could run targeted performance management applications to identify rising health care costs and quality lapses.
The platform would make it easier for health care providers to conduct individual patient monitoring and population health tracking (“Bits,” Times, 12/8). For example, a primary care physician could access information on a patient with diabetes to see if the patient has visited a podiatrist to check for blood flow problems.
Simpson said, “Part of the problem in healthcare is there’s so many doctors; there’s so much information to bring together. There’s not a single place for that.” Simpson added that the platform will facilitate “joining systems and aggregating the data together so that people can make better decisions” (Malone, Reuters, 12/7).
