GE will invest $500 million in its healthcare unit to make its operations more digital, and GE Healthcare also plans to double its bench of 5,000 software engineers, GE Healthcare CEO John Flannery revealed.

The GE Healthcare unit employs 54,000 people and generated $18.4 billion in revenue last year, according to the company.

GE Healthcare put a spotlight on its GE Healthcare Cloud at HIMSS17 late last month, where company leaders emphasized analytics, cloud-based imaging, population health and machine learning.

Spokeswoman Kelley Sousa said in a pre-HIMSS17 interview that the company is working to make GE Healthcare fully digital.

The company partnered with Boston Children’s Hospital, for instance, to develop new pediatric brain software the technology company and the hospital plan to take to market.

The company has also partnered with UC San Francisco’s Center for Digital Health Innovation to develop a library of deep learning algorithms to empower clinicians to make faster and more effective decisions about the diagnosis and management of patients with complex medical conditions.

On March 23, GE Healthcare announced it had acquired Monica Healthcare and its connected fetal monitor technology.

In revealing GE’s intentions to put $500 million toward that digital transformation, Flannery told the German business newspaper Handelsblatt the healthcare unit would hire 5,000 additional software engineers and data specialists.

Twitter: @Bernie_HITN
Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com

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