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Enabling Better Health and Healthcare Reform
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Enabling Better Health and Healthcare Reform
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GE is a global leader in healthcare. We are deeply engaged in medical
diagnostics and information technology while at the same time we are a
large purchaser of healthcare coverage. This combination gives GE a
unique vantage point on the dynamics and limitations of our current
healthcare system.

Our investment in technology is aimed at giving healthcare providers
access to the best possible tools to do their work. At the same time,
our technology investment is focused on providing solutions at the
practical and policy levels, which will improve healthcare system
efficiency.

With more than 300,000 employees worldwide, GE is one of global
business' largest consumers of healthcare services. As a healthcare
purchaser, our interest in the performance of the healthcare system
has led to the development of successful marketplace initiatives aimed
at improving the safety, quality and affordability of healthcare in
the U.S.

In addition, we are leveraging this experience to provide advanced
technical expertise to the development of domestic and international
health policy.

HEALTHYMAGINATION: ENABLING BETTER HEALTH

In 2009, GE announced that it will spend $3 billion by 2015 on
research and development and focus its healthcare business strategy to
deliver better care to more people at lower cost. This investment is
the foundation of GE's healthymagination initiative, which is built on
the core commitments of reducing costs and improving quality and
access in healthcare.

Under healthymagination, by 2015:

GE will launch 100 innovations that lower cost, increase access
 and encourage innovation for all, and improve quality by 15%. To
 do this, GE will invest $3 billion in research and development,
 while applying LEAN Six Sigma and other GE processes to accelerate
 performance excellence.

GE and its partners are focusing innovations on four critical
 needs to start: efficient technologies, healthcare information
 technologies, broader access, and consumer-driven health that
 looks to liberate patients from hospitals. In doing so, GE expects
 to grow its revenues by 2-3 times the U.S. gross domestic product
 and increase earnings.

GE will drive its own employee health efforts to a new level by
 creating new wellness and healthy GE worksite programs while
 keeping cost increases below the rate of inflation.

GE will engage and report on its progress: GE is engaging external
 thought leaders and has established a GE Health Advisory Board,
 headed by former U.S. Senators Bill Frist and Tom Daschle.
 Beginning in 2010, GE will report annually on its progress.

Healthymagination will draw on the people and capabilities from across
GE, including GE Healthcare, GE Water, NBC Universal, the GE Global
Research Center as well as the GE Foundation, the philanthropic arm of
GE.

Table - Access, Cost, and Quality

GE's U.S. HEALTHCARE REFORM POLICY

Comprehensive healthcare reform is essential for the long-term
vitality of the U.S. economy. As a global leader in healthcare, GE has
a unique vantage point, both as a company deeply engaged in medical
diagnostics and information technology and as an innovative large
purchaser of healthcare coverage. And while the U.S. healthcare system
has yielded impressive benefits and innovation, reform is needed to
make that system more accessible and equitable, less costly and
reactive and more patient centric.

In our view, comprehensive reform should include the following
elements:

1. Universal and Affordable Coverage: Reform requires affordable,
  universally available coverage. Such reform can only be achieved
  by providing low-income individuals and families with reasonable
  incentives and subsidies. Reform will also require new and
  simplified ways to purchase coverage through mechanisms like
  Health Insurance Exchanges (similar to the Massachusetts Health
  Connector). At the same time, every individual should be
  encouraged by appropriate incentives to purchase at least basic
  catastrophic coverage.

2. Transparency and Choice: It is far too difficult today to readily
  obtain reliable and understandable information about healthcare
  choices. Significant improvements in patient safety and quality of
  care have been made through private sector efforts with leadership
  from GE, including The Leapfrog Group and Bridges to Excellence.
  However, more work lies ahead. Comprehensive reform must include
  properly structured Comparative Effectiveness analysis including
  the value of healthcare choices - for example, physician and
  hospital quality and efficiency, health plan options and treatment
  and pharmaceutical options. Comprehensive reform should also
  recognize that diagnostics must be studied differently than drugs
  or treatments.

3. Payment Reform: The U.S. healthcare system needs new systems of
  payment that promote affordability, advance clinical quality and
  foster prevention, coordination, safety and better patient
  outcomes. These payment changes must be done hand-in-hand with
  more effective engagement of patients in making decisions based on
  having better information and incentives. Policymakers in both
  public and private settings are focusing on new forms of payment
  that could potentially result in better value, including new
  payments for primary care, bundled payment, pre-payment and paying
  for care of entire populations, as well as improving current types
  of payments. The details of payment reforms will be critical to
  their impact and must be guided by a clear set of goals and
  principles supported by public and private sector stakeholders. To
  inform these details, GE established the Center for Payment
  Reform, a coalition of consumers, purchasers, labor, physicians
  and other healthcare providers, payers and policymakers who have
  come together based on their shared vision that improving quality
  and affordability in U.S. healthcare requires a transformation in
  our payment systems.

4. Prevention and Early Detection: Prevention and early health are
  critical elements in improving the quality of healthcare and
  controlling costs. Reform should drive incentives for prevention
  and early detection. Medically appropriate screening identifies
  diseases and conditions earlier, where treatment can be more
  effective at lower cost. Benefit design must also encourage
  healthy lifestyle choices and behaviors.

5. System Efficiencies: The U.S. has taken far-reaching and
  meaningful steps toward a national health information system.
  Information technology and electronic medical records enable
  better, more efficient care, with fewer mistakes. Next, the U.S.
  must implement these incentives and structures carefully. If done
  right, nationally recognized, common HIT standards and
  interoperability will encourage rapid and widespread adoption. The
  U.S. must build on this newly enabled infrastructure to create
  incentives and mechanisms to measure and improve patient quality
  and safety.

6. Innovation: Technology remains a critical part of better
  healthcare. A more streamlined process for testing, approving and
  covering new technologies would improve access to innovative
  technologies and improve health outcomes. Coverage and payment
  policies should drive appropriate use and reimbursement for
  evidence-based innovations in treatment and medical procedures.

7. Insurance and the Role of Employer-Sponsored Plans: Insurers must
  take all comers and not discriminate based on health status or
  pre-existing conditions. The Employee Retirement Income Security
  Act (ERISA) must be preserved to ensure that the current
  employer-based system is not disrupted, particularly if no viable,
  cost-effective alternative has been identified. Existing tax
  deductions also must be preserved absent a comprehensive,
  affordable alternative. Regulatory reforms to drive more
  competition between insurers and between providers are also
  necessary.

8. Liability: Too much is spent on defensive medicine and the costs
  of lawsuits. Comprehensive reform must also fairly address the
  weakness in the medical liability system and should include
  innovative alternatives and reforms - like Health Courts.

Contacts

 

Gary ShefferGE Corporate, Vice PresidentCommunications & Public
AffairsWork +1 203 373 3476 Email Gary

 

Peter O'TooleGE Corporate, DirectorPublic RelationsWork +1 203 373
2547 Email Peter

Healthcare Re-imagined

In 2004, we began this new initiative to improve healthcare delivery
in rural Africa and ultimately other regions of the world.

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