The GE Brief: April 15, 2021
GE TURNS 129 TODAY
GE turns 129 today, and the spirit of curiosity, innovation and problem-solving that animated its founders Thomas Edison and Elihu Thomson is still very much in the air. GE Healthcare is one example. Its history has mirrored the meteoric pace of advances within medical science — from the first X-ray machines built by Thomson, to CT and MRI scans, ultrasound and virtual care systems that use artificial intelligence. “You go back to Edison,” says Mike Barber, who has spent four decades at GE Healthcare and now serves as GE’s chief diversity officer. “There's resilience. It’s just about trying to better understand: What do patients need, what do our customers need and what can we do from a technology perspective to create it and make it better.”
Leveraging intelligence: Barber believes the next 10 years could produce bigger gains in healthcare than the past 30. Just last year, for example, GE Healthcare partnered with a U.K. consortium led by the University of Oxford to devise software tools that can analyze medical imaging, laboratory and clinical data to help predict which patients stand the greatest risk of developing severe respiratory distress, a key cause of mortality for people suffering from COVID-19. “There are just all kinds of benefits by combining the technology, leveraging AI and using the biological information around the patient,” Barber says. “How diseases are being treated and patients are being diagnosed is going to continue to evolve and improve.”
Read more about Mike Barber’s — and GE Healthcare’s — remarkable journey here.
SEEING THE FUTURE
Thomas Edison’s light bulb patent was 15 years old when Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays and proved their power by imaging the bones inside his wife's hand. “I've seen my death,” she reportedly said after seeing the picture. But GE co-founder Elihu Thomson had longevity in mind. A year after Roentgen’s discovery, he modified Edison’s light bulb design and made it emit X-rays. He then used it to build one of the first commercial X-ray machines, which allowed doctors to diagnose bone fractures and locate foreign objects in the body. It also launched GE into the healthcare business.
Imaging is believing: Today, GE Healthcare makes everything from advanced imaging machines to software powered by artificial intelligence that can be used to process, analyze and probe for insights the terabytes of data the machines produce. The business generated $18 billion in revenues in 2020 and is playing an important role in helping clinicians fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
View a slideshow of GE Healthcare’s imaging advances through the years here.
MAJOR MILESTONES
Birthdays are far from the only milestone on GE’s calendar. Among the technological advances celebrating landmark achievements in 2020 were the 7F turbine, one of the most successful gas turbines ever made; the John F. Welch Technology Center in Bengaluru, India; and GE Renewable Energy’s 2 MW onshore wind platform, which has logged a combined 20 gigawatts of installed capacity since its introduction in 2015.
Click here to read more about GE’s year of major milestones.
On a clear July day in 1966, New York Central Railroad engineer Don Wetzel and his team boarded a specially modified Buddliner railcar. Bolted to the roof above them were two GE J47-19 jet engines. Wetzel throttled the engines up and tore down a length of track from Butler, Indiana, to Stryker, Ohio, at almost 184 mph, piloting the experimental vehicle into the record books as the world's fastest jet-powered train. Today, the M-497 is still America's fastest train.
— QUOTE OF THE DAY —
“As a 17-year-old walking into this company that helped me financially get through college, I met a lot of very smart people. Working with them and being able to contribute with my ideas, that was great. Did I ever expect that it would lead to working in all corners of the world and with clinicians doing exciting things? I didn't have those kinds of aspirations. I just wanted to be the best engineer that I could be.”
— Mike Barber, GE’s chief diversity officer who has spent four decades at GE Healthcare
Quote: GE Reports. Images: Mike Barber, GE, Sneha Pappu.