G.E. Plans More Lower-Cost Health Products

GE has announced a cool strategy to produce lower cost health products.

G.E. Plans More Lower-Cost Health Products - NYTimes.com

This is in line with what we had discussed last week with cellphone ultrasound technology.

I have to admit it has an unfortunate name - "healthymagination" - I think trying to be in line with their ecomagination campaign. The website for the campaign is here. I find the partnership with Intermountain Health Care on electronic medical records exciting for US health reform and the work on devices exciting for advancing health care in the developing world.

Would be great to see other large manufacturers to undertake these sorts of initiatives such as Toyota's neonatal incubator project with CIMIT/MIT, or Phillips HealthCare's portable EKG machine for rural healthcare. There is a market just in India and China alone, just need to make the business case.

The problem ends up being distribution channels in smaller countries or less developed regions - the "last mile" problem. There doesn't seem to be that big of a gap between essential health products and consumer packaged goods (e.g. coca cola, razors or sim cards) from internal research that I've seen, but it still is there. So even with these sorts of announcements, you can make the product, but it doesn't necessarily mean it will get to the people who need it.

Anyways, wandering between topics, but I think the GE announcement is exciting.