GE Threatens Philips with Push Into Home Health Care
New York - General Electric Co., the world’s largest manufacturer of medical imaging equipment, is now threatening Royal Philips Electronics’ lead as GE expands into the home health care business. GE’s move comes amid a slowdown in growth in hospital based imaging equipment business in the U. S.
Both Philips and GE have placed a priority on the home health care market as most forecasts point to that field’s growth outpacing hospital business. With the population aging, and the resulting increase in medical costs, home health care is predicted to become more and more vital in the years to come. The U. S. Budget Deficit Reduction Act of 2007 curtailed reimbursement for many imaging procedures in hospitals, thus demand for those procedures has fallen, leading to decreased sales for the equipment needed.
GE and Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, California plan to jointly spend $250 million on the development of home health care products over the next five years. One product that has already come from this joint venture is the Intel Health Guide, which won the approval of the U. S. Food and Drug Administration last year. The machine functions almost as an in home nurse, collecting vital signs and other information, and then sending the data to the doctor who can, if necessary, interact with the patient via videoconferencing or e-mail.
Officials with GE and Intel plan for the home health care partnership to be a major part of each corporation for a long time to come as they expand into more areas of the home health field. In time, they expect to develop products to monitor or aid in the treatment of heart disease, sleep disorders and in monitoring personal wellness. Jeffrey Immelt, GE Chief Executive Officer, expects the alliance to gradually grow into a multibillion dollar business. Immelt also feels that the GE - Intel alliance can’t be compared directly to Philips due to the fragmentation of the home health care industry.
Nonetheless, this alliance and GE’s push into the home health care field comes on the heels of Philips’ purchase of Respironics Inc. last year in a move that made Philips the largest provider of home health care products in the world. Though spokesmen for Philips have declined to comment on GE’s expansion into the home health field, their investment of some $6 billion dollars in the acquisition of home health care businesses over the past three years is evidence of how highly they value that market, which many feel is destined to continue to be one of the fastest growing and most profitable divisions of the health care industry.
In Japan an MRI costs about $85.00. And the cost isn’t subsidized by the government and nobody’s getting a break. Because that’s what it costs for MRI machine operators to make a profit and continue in business.
An MRI in the US costs between $800.00 and $1,200. 90 percent of that cost goes to ripoff, mostly to private insurance companies.
The Republicans don’t want private health insurance companies having to compete with government health insurance. They say the private companies won’t be able to compete. Their priorities are - private insurance company people keeping their multiple million dollar mansions, private jets and 60 million dollar cabin cruisers are more important than the health of the American people.
In addition to the development of high tech home health care products, the implementation of electronic health records is where we need to be in the long term. It will be a more efficient system and save lives. The investment will be justified if we have a secure, standardized system. Until we have a standardized system, we will continue to see resistance to investing in electronic health records. http://www.BenefitStudio.com