Our Viewpoints : News : GE

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.

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