VentureBeat

Modeled after its expansive Ecomagination clean energy campaign, General Electric has launched Healthymagination a $6 billion strategy to jumpstart health care innovation in the next six years — including $3 billion that will go directly toward development of products designed to make health care more affordable and accessible.

In addition to boosting its own productivity in the sector, the company will lend $2 billion more to hospitals and medical facilities to upgrade their technology and adopt new, more efficient systems, particularly in rural regions (it already planned to give out $20 billion). The remaining $1 billion will be used to forge partnerships with companies like Intel and others, to provide clean water to under-resourced medical facilities, and to market its bold new presence in the health care business.

GE plans to add the “Healthymagination brand” to products that both improve health care quality and reduce costs for consumers by 15 percent. Its goal is to add this unofficial certification to 100 of its medical products — from CAT scanners and X-ray machines to ultrasounds — by 2015. It has retained consultancy Oxford Analytica to scientifically determine which products meet these specifications.

While GE says the initiative has been in the works for several years, a few factors have conspired to make this a perfectly timed launch. First, the downturn has eaten into the diagnostic device market, which was previously the bread and butter for GE’s $18 billion health care division. The company hopes Healthymagination will reorient its focus, and make its name synonymous with other types of products in the sector. Secondly, the Obama administration has been very vocal about the importance of revamping American medical care with the best technology available. This is a popular bandwagon, and GE hopes to be in the driver’s seat. Aptly, former senator and cabinet nominee Tom Daschle will sit on the campaign’s advisory board.

But the initiative’s impact won’t be restricted to the U.S. The company also produces a lot of inexpensive, portable medical products for use in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. These too will be eligible for the Healthymagination brand, which could lead to even cheaper and more efficient technologies for underserved communities in these regions, GE says.

The company is also looking to lower medical costs for its 300,000 employees by placing more emphasis on preventative care. It will turn 175 of its company-run health centers into wellness clinics to reinforce this shift, though it remains to be seen what that will mean in practice.

Here’s the presentation the company gave during its internal launch last week. As you can see, the latter half is devoted to the benefits the Healthymagination campaign has in store for revenue and shareholders.

healthymagination_presentation -

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