GE Healthcare and Microsoft Corp. have announced plans to create a joint venture aimed at helping healthcare organizations and professionals use real-time, system-wide intelligence to improve healthcare quality and the patient experience. Upon formation, the new company will develop and market an open, interoperable technology platform and innovative clinical applications focused on enabling better population health management to improve outcomes and the overall economics of health and wellness.

According to the companies, this new venture will combine Microsoft’s deep expertise in building platforms and ecosystems with GE Healthcare’s experience in clinical and administrative workflow solutions. The idea is to empower healthcare professionals and organizations with the intelligence and capabilities to respond to the rapidly evolving and complex healthcare landscape.

“The complementary nature of GE Healthcare’s and Microsoft’s individual expertise will drive new insights, solutions, and efficiencies to further advance the two companies’ shared vision of a connected, patient-centric healthcare system,” says Jeffrey R. Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE Healthcare’s parent company GE. “The global healthcare challenges of access, cost, and quality of care delivery are creating a new focus on the performance and accountability of healthcare delivery systems–in every country, at every level of care. This venture will demonstrate what is possible when leading companies with complementary capabilities work together to meet a common goal.”

The new company will deliver a distinctive, open platform that will give healthcare providers and independent software vendors the ability to develop a new generation of clinical applications. The venture will develop healthcare applications on the platform using in-house developers and the platform will connect with a wide range of healthcare IT products, including those from GE Healthcare IT and other vendors.

“High quality affordable healthcare is one of the biggest challenges facing every nation, but it’s also an area where technology can make a huge difference,” says Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “Combining Microsoft’s open, interoperable health platforms and software expertise with GE’s experience and healthcare solutions will create exciting opportunities for patients and healthcare providers alike. Working together, GE and Microsoft can help make healthcare systems more intelligent and cost efficient while improving patient care.”

The two parent companies bring complementary expertise to this new venture and will contribute intellectual property, including:

• Microsoft Amalga, an enterprise health intelligence platform.
• Microsoft Vergence, a single sign-on and context management solution.
• Microsoft expreSSO, an enterprise single sign-on solution.
• GE Healthcare eHealth, a health information exchange.
• GE Healthcare Qualibria, a clinical knowledge application environment being developed in cooperation with Intermountain Healthcare (Salt Lake City, UT) and Mayo Clinic.

The long-term vision of the venture is to create new value by offering a healthcare performance management suite that includes many of these products. In addition to the new joint venture, GE Healthcare and Microsoft will each maintain a strong presence in the healthcare IT industry, as both parent organizations will continue to sell other products and services to healthcare organizations worldwide.

The partnership is being embraced by such medical institutions as Mayo Clinic. “Improving the quality of healthcare through innovative collaboration is a goal that we share with GE Healthcare and Microsoft. Working together with others to identify new ways to improve health outcomes and drive down cost is a hallmark of our patient-care philosophy,” says C. Michel Harper, executive dean for practice, Mayo Clinic. “We’re pleased to see healthcare IT companies embrace this same idea and come together in new ways. We look forward to seeing the progress this new endeavor will bring in medicine.”

The new company’s products and services will provide the information and insight required to help address many critical problems in the healthcare system today, including healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and chronic disease management. For example, by pulling together data from disparate IT systems, identifying those patients most at risk for a given HAI, and surfacing guidelines and protocols within provider workflow, the solutions will enable healthcare organizations to more effectively deploy their resources and deliver better care at lower costs.

The new venture complements the existing offerings from both parent companies and is expected to yield job growth in its first five years of existence. It will operate globally, offering interoperability platforms and application solutions targeting both healthcare providers and payers. Michael J. Simpson, vice president and general manager at GE Healthcare IT, will serve as the company’s CEO.

The new company, which has yet to be named, will be headquartered near the Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA, with significant presence in Salt Lake City, and additional cities worldwide. Launch of the new joint venture is subject to customary conditions, including regulatory approvals, and is expected in the first half of 2012.v