2. The Oldest HIS Vendor?
⢠Thanks to Jim Pesce, VP over McKessonâs HIS products, we pick up
the story of how GE began its HIS ventures several years before
the three oldest current HIS vendors were founded back in 1969:
â Compucare, Shared Medical Systems, and Meditech.
⢠You may remember Dr. Octo Barnettâs early project at MIT that
was the HIS baptism for Meditechâs founder Neal Pappalardo.
Turns out, Jim Pesce joined GE Healthcare way back then too:
â âActually started up in 1966. Was a start up funded by
Cambridge, MA based engineering firm Bolt Baranek and
Newman. They were building the internet for healthcare. The
technology couldn't support their vision. GE took over funding
at end of 1967. GE then sold the system to HCA in 1971 when
the entire team, except Pesce relocated to Nashville. The
system which was financials only is the home grown billing
system HCA still uses today... Imagine that!â
3. The Sleeping GiantâŚ
⢠In fact, HCA is not alone in using 1960s technology in 2013:
â Hundreds of hospitals still run Siemens âInvision,â with TCE
(Transmission & Control Error) reportsfrom 1960âs SHAS.
â And hundreds more are still running Meditechâs âMagic,â with
roots that go back thru MIIS to Dr. Octo Barnettâs MUMPSâŚ
⢠Whatâs germane to our HIS-tory is
GE got out of HIS in 1971, and
stayed out for several decades,
ending any claim to being one of
the oldest continuous HIS vendors.
⢠Then, in the late 90s, the sleeping
electronics giant re-entered the HIS
industry with a vengeance, using its
enormous capital assets to fund a
series of acquisitions of HIS firms.
4. Roaring Back, 20 Years Later
⢠As the time line below illustrates, once GE woke up in 1997, it
went on a buying binge, gobbling up a slew of niche players:
Company Acquired Date(New Name)
â Lockheed Martin/LORAL 1997 (Centricity PACS)
â Marquette Medical Systems 1998 (Centricity Perinatal)
â Per-Se RIS 2001 (Centricity RIS )
â iPath ORMIS 2002 (Centricity Perioperative)
â BDM 2002 (Centricity Pharmacy)
â MedicaLogic Logician 2002 (Centricity Physician Office EMR)
â Millbrook 2002 (Centricity Physician Office PM)
â TripleG 2003 (Centricity Lab)
5. The Net is CAST
⢠The biggest acquisition of all was was IDX in 2005, for $1.2B, who
had themselves acquired a full suite of hospital & ancillary systems,
all renamed as part of the PHAMIS âcastâ series of product names.
⢠So GE renamed each with one of its own âCentricityâ monikers:
IDX Name(GE Name)
Flowcast Centricity Business
Groupcast Centricity Group Mgmt.
Carecast Centricity Enterprise
Imagecast Centricity RIS-IC
⢠Most importantly, just like other acquisition-oriented firms such as
HBOC, Eclipsys, Allscripts, etc., GE set about integrating the most
important components of any HIS system: marketing material!
Vendor HQ sales mavens churn out âseamlesslyâ integrated:
â Brochures, PowerPoints, Proposals, Contracts, Invoices, etc.
⢠Some vendors even interface their disparate HIS acquisitionsâŚ
6. Impressive Financials
⢠Per the chart below, GE Healthcare grew nicely from these HIS
acquisitions, and adding IDXâs â$500M in annual revenue at the
time of the takeover made GE an overnight $1B+ HIS player!
â They suddenly ranked 4th behind McKesson, Siemens &Cerner
⢠GE could offer both âTotal HISâ (financial, clinical & ancillaries) as
well as a full practice management suite (financial & clinicals).
⢠All under a fully integrated set of demos, proposals, ppt file, etc.
Like other acquiring vendors, these products ran on a way array of
hardware platforms, OS, data bases and programming languagesâŚ
7. Sales Stars
⢠To head up sales of their
red hot HIS division, GE
recruited Frank Pecaitis,
sales superstar during
QuadraMedâs halcyon
days of the 90s, who also
helped put MedSphereâs
âOpenVistaâ on the map.
⢠Hereâs GEâs demo dudes &
dollies at our 2009 âHIS
Buyers Seminarâ in Dallas:
⢠You name it, hospital or
practice system, and they
could present it â on a
seamlessly integrated ppt!
8. GEâs ApogeeâŚ
⢠By the end of the decade, GE
hit an estimated $1B+ in HIT
revenue from a large client
base of â100 hospitals and
over 1K physician groups.
⢠But then something happened
to GE as well as Horizon,
Soarian, Sunrise, Millennium,
etc. They ran upon an âepicâ
competitor that dominated
the large AMC/IDN world...
⢠Frank left, revenues slacked,
and they not only lost large
hospital sales, but started to
lose many large Centricity
clients as well to Ms. Judy.
9. A âCaradigmâ Shift
⢠There were high hopes for GEâs 2009 joint venture with IHC,
creators of âHELPâ years ago. To quote the Salt Lake City Tribune:
â âIn early 2009, General Electric announced a $3 billion
investment in new medical technology that involved a
partnership between GE Healthcare and Utahâs Intermountain
Healthcare to create a top-line electronic medical-record
system. The Web-based record system was designed to help
doctors and nurses avoid medical errors and waste, while also
creating an online record for patients.â
⢠Then, in March of this year came the surprise announcement:
â âCaradigm, a joint venture formed 10 months ago by GE
Healthcare and Microsoft, has laid off approximately 70
percent of its Utah workforce.The layoff, which took place on
Wednesday at the companyâs office in Murray, affected
between 40 and 50 employees.â
10. Beginning of their 2nd Perigee?
⢠In our annual ranking of HIS vendors by annual revenue, we
estimate GE has fallen several positions since their post-IDX peak.
⢠They even sold their RX system back to BDM in March! Is it the
start ofsecond retreat from the HIS biz? If I live long enough, Iâll
revisit this prediction in a 2023 HIS-talk HIS-tory episode on GEâŚ
⢠Meanwhile, hereâs the 47-year picture of GEâs HIS ups & downs: