GE Healthymagination touches millions of lives

MANILA, Philippines - Healthymagination, a GE initiative aimed at responding to one of the toughest challenges today — global health — announced the progress it has made two years into a six-year commitment aimed at generating better health care for more people at the lowest possible costs.

Since its launch in 2009, GE has had more than 40 product validations, touching the lives of over 234 million lives around the world through the global program. The company has achieved $2.2 billion of progress against the original $6-billion goal.

In a joint annual report to healthcare stakeholders, GE board chairman and chief executive officer Jeffrey Immelt and Healthymagination vice president Michael Barber announced the breadth of Healthymagination’s global reach, with 100,491,626 lives touched in the area of healthcare imaging; 57.509 million in health care IT; 69,694,325 in point of care; and 6,770,397 lives in the initiative’s other aspects.

“We have made progress in achieving our Healthymagination vision over the last few years,” Immelt and Barber said in a joint statement.

Healthymagination entails investing and innovating on three crucial healthcare areas — cost, quality and access.

“Growing populations continue to struggle with limited resources, a shortage in health workforce and poor infrastructure, while rising chronic disease rates and skyrocketing costs threaten to overwhelm delivery systems. These are formidable challenges, but we are determined to address them with bold ideas, big thinking and continuous innovation,” Immelt and Barber said.

Based on the annual report, a total of 43 Healthymagination product validations have been completed from the original target of 100, while more than 100 Healthahead certified sites are in operation.