Joint Venture Aims to Transform Global Healthcare System

A global joint venture between Microsoft (Redmond, WA, USA) and General Electric Healthcare (GE Healthcare, Chalfont St Giles, United Kingdom) will provide professionals with tools to counter the evolving healthcare landscape.

GE Healthcare, through its healthcare IT business, and Microsoft have announced plans to create a joint venture aimed at helping healthcare organizations and professionals use real time, system-wide intelligence to improve healthcare quality and the patient experience. The new venture will combine Microsoft’s deep expertise in building platforms and ecosystems with GE Healthcare’s experience in clinical and administrative workflow solutions, empowering healthcare professionals and organizations with the capabilities and information needed to respond to the rapidly evolving and complex healthcare landscape.

The two parent companies will contribute intellectual property to the venture, including Microsoft Amalga, an enterprise health intelligence platform; Microsoft Vergence, a single sign-on and context management solution; Microsoft expreSSO, an enterprise single sign-on solution; GE Healthcare eHealth, a Health Information Exchange; and GE Healthcare Qualibria, a clinical knowledge application environment being developed in cooperation with Intermountain Healthcare (Salt Lake City, UT, USA) and the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN, USA).

“The complementary nature of GE Healthcare’s and Microsoft’s individual expertise will drive new insights, solutions and efficiencies to further advance the two companies’ shared vision of a connected, patient-centric healthcare system, ” said Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE. “The global healthcare challenges of access, cost, and quality of care delivery are creating a new focus on the performance and accountability of healthcare delivery systems in every country, at every level of care. This venture will demonstrate what is possible when leading companies with complementary capabilities work together to meet a common goal.”

“High quality affordable healthcare is one of the biggest challenges facing every nation, but it’s also an area where technology can make a huge difference,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “Combining Microsoft’s open, interoperable health platforms and software expertise with GE’s experience and healthcare solutions will create exciting opportunities for patients and healthcare providers alike. Working together, GE and Microsoft can help make healthcare systems more intelligent and cost efficient while improving patient care.”

Upon formation, the new company will develop and market an open, interoperable technology platform and innovative clinical applications using in-house developers, which will connect with a wide range of healthcare IT products, including those from GE Healthcare IT and other vendors. The distinctive, open platform will give healthcare providers and independent software vendors the ability to develop a new generation of clinical applications, focused on enabling better population health management to improve outcomes and the overall economics of health and wellness.

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