GE Healthcare Announces $1 Billion Investment In Healthcare Education
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Training programs are anticipated to benefit more than 300 million patients worldwide.
GE Healthcare has announced it plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next five years in the development of its educational offerings for more than two million health professionals in developed and emerging economies. Through on-the-ground, online, and remote training, GE Healthcare’s program will benefit more than 300 million patients worldwide. Solutions will be geared to meet local needs and will include new clinical, product application, technical and leadership training, and education.
“Challenges around localized capacity building, training and innovation are consistent themes for many healthcare systems and Ministries of Health around the world,” said John Flannery, President and CEO of GE Healthcare. “We will continue to work closely with local governments, institutions and customers to address some of their most important concerns. In some countries, this will mean training midwives to use new ultrasound or portable diagnostic equipment. In others, it will include supporting multi-hospital networks to enhance their clinical and operational outcomes.”
GE Healthcare is developing new education solutions around two critical goals – greater access and measurable outcomes, and is also working on maximizing the quality and measurable impact of its new training solutions. GE Healthcare’s new education solutions are designed to upskill healthcare professionals worldwide and drive further growth in the industry.
“Healthcare providers continue to experience increased patient volumes and decreased time for training. And it’s clear to us that the skills of healthcare professionals using medical equipment are at least as impactful on the resulting outcomes, as the quality of the product itself. Healthcare providers will be able to embrace new GE education solutions, to better train their staff, optimize equipment use, and ultimately improve patient care,” said Mario Lois, General Manager, Global Education Services at GE Healthcare.
Global healthcare systems face unique challenges, depending on their locations. In developed countries like the U.S., Europe, and parts of Asia, focus lies on optimizing efficiency, systems integration, data analytics, and achieving greater productivity. In emerging economies, the chief obstacle is often achieving access to affordable, basic primary care. The GE Healthcare training program is designed to be tailored to these unique needs.
“Our focus is to develop meaningful, relevant education solutions that will help healthcare professionals create long-term value and positive measurable impact. By combining our heritage in medical technology, healthcare IT, software and life sciences, we can provide enhanced learning, insights and best practices that can make a real difference,” said Lois.
The new program builds on GE Healthcare’s existing global training initiatives, including Skill India Initiative and the Developing Health Globally initiative, the $14.7 million commitment for skills development and capacity building in Kenya and other GE Foundation training initiatives, and a new $100 million commitment announced in February 2015 for the development and delivery of localized education and training offerings to help address health challenges in Africa, Turkey, the Middle East, Russia, and CIS by 2018.