KUALA LUMPUR: American conglomerate General Electric Co Ltd (GE) is embarking on an aggressive rollout of healthcare products and services in the Asia-Pacific region.

The group’s healthcare division, GE Healthcare (GEHC), has made the region’s large underserved market the focus of GE’s US$6 billion (RM20.88 billion) “Healthymagination” initiative over the next six years.

“With healthcare cost going up globally, our goal is to make healthcare affordable, we want to tackle the issue of global healthcare sustainability in a way we have not had previously.

“Under the programme, we aim to launch over 100 innovations that focus on efficient technologies, health IT, more access and consumer-driven health,” Arun Sharma, GEHC’s president and chief executive officer for Southeast Asia said in an interview with The Edge Financial Daily recently.

The key trusts of the initiative were to reduce the cost of healthcare equipment, increase public access to healthcare products and improve the quality of healthcare by 15% by 2015.  

Arun said the strategy included digitising as many medical applications and equipment as possible, for instance, by employing a portable ultrasonic device which is 20% cheaper than its equivalent in the market.

“This would be the hallmark of this programme... products that are more mobile and affordable.”  

He said the Centricity Teleradiology solution provided by GEHC was also in line with the Ministry of Health’s telemedicine initiative for improving healthcare, specifically rural health.

Fifty percent of GE’s spending plan of US$6 billion has been earmarked for the development of healthcare products and services, US$2 billion for financing, and US$1 billion on cost saving, access and quality improvements programme.

As for its plans in Malaysia, Arun said GEHC was targeting a 15% growth in revenue this year from about US$513 million recorded last year.

He added that the group had identified several areas of healthcare to focus on, and it would be working closely with the Malaysian government and the public healthcare sector on its solutions.

GEHC has worked with six public hospitals to provide radiology IT solutions and automation of critical care areas as well as anaesthesia IT systems. It is also furnishing the health ministry with eight full-field digital mammography units.

“At the moment, 18 hospitals are using our anaesthesia automation system (Centricity Anaesthesia) in operating theatres — enabling anaesthetists to record information electronically, for efficiency and accuracy, leading to increased productivity,” Arun said.

GEHC also supplies private and public hospitals with the latest diagnostic imaging equipment and healthcare information systems.

Arun said GE’s other divisions were also active in the country, where the group had invested more than RM1 billion.

“We are working closely with local infrastructure providers, supplying equipment and services to Tenaga Nasional Bhd, Petronas, KTM and local water authorities,” he said.

GE group recorded revenues of US$182 billion globally in 2008, including US$18 billion from its healthcare division. It has 600,000 employees worldwide, including more than 1,000 Malaysians.