GE HealthCare Accelerates Digital Healthcare with Launch of Multiple Innovative Solutions and Products

In June 2018, GE announced the spin-off of its healthcare business to establish an independent company. At that time, Kieran Murphy, CEO of GE HealthCare, stated that as an independent entity, GE HealthCare would have greater freedom to invest and innovate, along with enhanced opportunities for future growth.

Now that GE Healthcare has been operating independently for nearly a year, whether it can deliver results satisfactory to the GE Group can be gleaned from the recently held 81st China Medical Equipment Fair (Spring) (CMEF).

Image source: GE Healthcare

Promoting the “Cloud ECG Solution”: One-Click Transmission to Strengthen Primary Care

At this CMEF exhibition, GE Healthcare showcased 21 smart innovative products and solutions, primarily covering intelligent medical imaging equipment, digital applications and services, high-end hybrid operating rooms, smart critical care, and mobile diagnostics. Among these, the most notable were four products specifically designed for the digital domain: the Cloud ECG Solution, APM Asset Cloud Manager, Cloud Imaging Solution, and the Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging Solution with Integrated AI Assistance (Cardio MR AI Solution).

In January and July 2017, the State Council issued the “13th Five-Year Plan for Health and Wellness” and the “Development Plan for New-Generation Artificial Intelligence,” respectively, marking the first time that the Chinese government explicitly outlined national development goals for digital healthcare and emphasized the digital transformation of the medical industry.

Previously, Duan Xiaoying, Senior Vice President of GE globally and President and CEO of GE China, publicly stated: “Accelerating digitalization is one of GE China’s three major development strategies (accelerating digitalization, comprehensive localization, and seeking global strategic partnerships). By leveraging machine connectivity, software, and big data analytics, we aim to promote the application of the Industrial Internet in vertical industrial sectors to enhance production efficiency. Specifically, in the healthcare sector, our focus is primarily on asset operations management, clinical patient diagnosis, and hospital capacity building.”

The four newly launched digital innovation products can be seen as one of the annotations to GE Healthcare's digital layout.

Let us first discuss the “Cloud ECG Solution.” This is a digital, integrated electrocardiogram (ECG) solution based on a cloud-ECG architecture, primarily designed for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. It enables the establishment of regional ECG networks connecting tertiary hospitals with primary care institutions, facilitating high-precision data acquisition and integrated transmission. By leveraging internet-based big data and artificial intelligence algorithms to assist in analytical diagnosis, the solution transmits expert diagnostic reports from the cloud-based remote ECG consultation center back to primary care ECG acquisition sites. This allows patients to conveniently access high-quality diagnostic services from major Grade A tertiary hospitals close to their location.

Image source: GE Healthcare

In the words of Chen Jinlei, Vice President of GE Healthcare China, the cloud-based ECG solution is essentially a multi-dimensional architecture. He cited an example involving a medical consortium: a patient in Beijing undergoes an ECG examination at a local community hospital within the region. The ECG data are transmitted in real time via the cloud to a corresponding large tertiary Grade-A hospital in Beijing that is part of the same medical consortium. Physicians at this tertiary hospital receive a request for assisted diagnosis and issue a reference diagnostic report based on the examination data. This diagnostic report is then sent back to the community hospital where the patient was examined. Finally, physicians at the community hospital determine the patient’s subsequent treatment plan based on this diagnostic result.

“The Cloud ECG Platform not only reduces geographical limitations, but for some emergency or critically ill patients, it can also immediately activate the green life channel to coordinate emergency resources and strive to control the door-to-balloon time (D2B, an indicator of overall medical quality in cardiovascular centers) within 90 minutes, winning critical rescue time for patients.” Chen Jinlei specifically mentioned.

In fact, practical applications of the Cloud ECG solution were already in place as early as 2017. According to Dai Ying, Chief Innovation Officer of GE Healthcare China, Zhuanghe Central Hospital in Liaoning Province (hereinafter referred to as “Zhuanghe Hospital”) officially implemented GE Healthcare’s “Cloud ECG” solution in June 2017. Leveraging this solution, Zhuanghe Hospital achieved one-click data transmission from equipment at township health centers to the hospital. After primary care physicians performed electrocardiograms (ECGs), doctors at Zhuanghe Hospital could access the data and provide diagnoses within five minutes. By the end of 2018, after operating the Cloud ECG solution for a year and a half, Zhuanghe Hospital had conducted nearly 30,000 remote ECG diagnoses for more than 24,000 patients. On average, the system assisted primary hospitals in treating three to four STEMI patients per month. The hospital’s volume of PCI procedures tripled within two years, while the proportion of cardiovascular patients transferred outside the hospital decreased from 17% in 2016 to 7%. In 2018 alone, nearly RMB 5 million was saved from the basic medical insurance and rural cooperative medical scheme funds. This not only significantly improved diagnostic efficiency and service capacity but also markedly enhanced patient satisfaction.

“A director of a township health center in Zhuanghe City once stated, ‘In our primary healthcare institutions, general practitioners have limited capabilities and rarely encounter complex electrocardiogram (ECG) cases; some have never even seen them. Given the rural setting, diagnostic challenges are substantial, leading to a high risk of missed or incorrect diagnoses. The introduction of cloud-based ECG technology has largely resolved these issues.’”

“On the surface, the Cloud ECG solution addresses the treatment of cardiovascular diseases; in essence, it aims to fundamentally resolve the ‘strengthening primary care’ requirement within the tiered diagnosis and treatment framework of healthcare reform,” said Dai Ying.

The Story of Digital Health Strategy Continues: Upgraded Asset Cloud Manager Released

In the field of digital healthcare, GE Healthcare’s story is far from over.

“At this stage, in the field of digital healthcare, GE Healthcare is primarily focused on three key output areas: asset operation management, clinical diagnosis for patients, and hospital capacity building, optimizing the distribution of medical resources and effectively enhancing the accessibility of high-quality healthcare services,” said Chen Jinlei.

In terms of hospital capacity building, the aforementioned Cloud ECG solution serves as a prime example. In the realm of asset operations management, GE Healthcare has launched APM (Asset Performance Management), its first digital project implemented in China. This comprehensive intelligent management and optimization solution for medical equipment was customized by the local Chinese team to meet domestic needs. Leveraging big data-driven smart analytics and optimization, it enables lean management throughout the entire lifecycle of medical devices.

To date, APM Asset Cloud Manager has been on the market for over two years and has been implemented in more than 1,000 hospitals across China, including Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital Affiliated to Zhejiang University School of Medicine, the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, and Hunan Provincial People's Hospital.

Taking Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital in Zhejiang as an example, the hospital began deploying the APM Asset Cloud Manager product in 2017, achieving “cloud-based” management of over 14,000 medical devices across the entire institution. This enables staff to report repairs via WeChat, manage work orders, track progress, and view data at any time, significantly improving equipment management and maintenance efficiency. Building on this foundation, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital collaborated with GE Healthcare engineers to innovate and implement a “Allocation Center” model based on the concept of equipment sharing. By real-time tracking of device location and status, the hospital achieves on-demand allocation of equipment, maximizing utilization rates.

At this CMEF exhibition, GE Healthcare unveiled the newly upgraded version of its APM Asset Cloud Manager. This upgrade introduces new functional modules, including a Radiology Command Center solution and an Equipment Allocation Center solution, which enhance the effectiveness and rationality of radiology resource utilization and intelligently match equipment needs across clinical departments. These capabilities enable hospitals to achieve more optimized operational workflows, more refined performance management, and smarter decision-making analytics.

Chen Jinlei revealed to Yigu: “APM Asset Cloud Manager will evolve into a more open ecosystem platform in the future, supporting and integrating management applications for other devices, thereby safeguarding smart hospitals and government data management.”

In the realm of clinical diagnosis, GE Healthcare has partnered with a top-10 global artificial intelligence company to launch Cardio MR AI, the first FDA-approved cloud-based AI-assisted diagnostic system for cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. Leveraging GE’s MRI technology, this system enables comprehensive signal acquisition of the entire heart and thorax during free breathing, eliminating the need for breath-holding. It facilitates visualized and quantitative analysis of the entire thorax, providing a more intuitive depiction of cardiac morphology and structure. Coupled with cloud-based post-processing computational power, the system delivers real-time results and assists physicians in quantitative analysis. It demonstrates significant advantages in research on valvular heart disease and congenital heart disease. Currently, this solution has been implemented at multiple institutions, including Fuwai Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing Anzhen Hospital, and the Shanghai Children's Medical Center affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

The World’s First Cardiac CT Debuts in China, Solving the Challenge of Poor Visualization Within Stents

In addition to its continued efforts in the digital health sector, GE Healthcare has also launched several flagship products in its traditionally strong imaging domain.

First, the new generation of ultra-high-end “Vector CT” was introduced. Huang Yi, General Manager of GE Healthcare’s CT product line in China, stated: “Demand in the healthcare market is becoming increasingly segmented due to the rapid growth in the volume of patient imaging examinations and the growing complexity of image-based disease diagnosis. As a standard piece of equipment in medical imaging, CT scanners are seeing rapid growth in installation base and adoption rates in China. Currently, there is significant demand for second and third CT units in tertiary hospitals and county-level general hospitals. To meet such highly segmented market needs, GE Healthcare is actively developing versatile CT systems that combine clinical application capabilities with research potential. The ‘Vector CT’ will deliver a pleasant surprise to Chinese users, truly embodying the meaning of ‘versatility.’”

In clinical practice, spectral CT imaging provides richer, more precise, and quantitative multi-parametric imaging information, offering unique value for the accurate radiological diagnosis of various conditions, including early tumor lesion detection and treatment efficacy assessment, nervous system imaging, large-vessel angiography, and musculoskeletal imaging. GE Healthcare’s newly launched “Vector CT” introduces its leading Vector Spectral Technology, enabling wide-detector, multi-material, multi-channel spectral imaging. In the field of oncologic imaging, this innovation means that contrast between lesions and normal tissues can be enhanced using low-keV images, or tumor vascularity can be better visualized through iodine-based maps, thereby improving the detection rate of small tumors in solid organs such as the liver, pancreas, and kidneys. This assists clinicians in selecting appropriate treatment plans and conducting precise assessments of therapeutic efficacy. For example, CT imaging plays a crucial role in the accurate staging and treatment response evaluation of gastric cancer.

Meanwhile, Vector CT employs a novel intelligent precision spectral reconstruction engine, significantly accelerating spectral reconstruction speed and enabling real-time multi-channel host-based spectral reconstruction and post-processing. Spectral images from the host are directly transmitted to the hospital’s Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), allowing physicians to review spectral images as routinely as conventional images, thereby facilitating the routine clinical application of spectral imaging.

Furthermore, “Vector CT” can overcome the limitations imposed by high heart rates and arrhythmias, efficiently delivering high-definition coronary anatomical and functional imaging. In response to the high prevalence of coronary artery disease (CAD), Vector CT leverages its wide-body Gemstone HD detector, intelligent gating scan, intelligent arrhythmia recognition, and intelligent coronary freezing technology to achieve precise, high-definition coronary imaging. This effectively helps clinicians address the challenges of coronary examination in patients with high heart rates and arrhythmias, while simultaneously streamlining routine diagnostic and therapeutic workflows for CAD and reducing the need for coronary angiography and associated healthcare resource utilization.

It is worth noting that GE Healthcare also launched the world’s first CT scanner dedicated specifically to cardiac imaging—the CardioGraphe CT—at this CMEF exhibition, marking its debut in China. According to Chen Jinlei, the CardioGraphe CT combines wide-detector coverage with dual X-ray tube technology, enabling comprehensive data acquisition within a single heartbeat under free-breathing and irregular heart rhythm conditions. It delivers high-definition stent imaging, resolving the longstanding challenge of visualizing in-stent structures obscured by metal artifacts. The system can be deployed in cardiology departments, allowing patients undergoing post-stent implantation follow-up or requiring long-term disease monitoring to receive rapid and targeted examinations directly within the cardiology setting.

“Another advantage is its small footprint. It is dedicated to cardiac imaging, unlike whole-body CT scanners that require significant space. This makes it easier to deploy such a device not only in the radiology department but also in the cardiology department. A simple example illustrates this: Given the high incidence of coronary heart disease, patients often require stent placement during treatment. After stent implantation, CT is used to assess the effectiveness of the procedure. Conventional CT scanners could only visualize the exterior of the stent, while the interior remained difficult to discern due to the stent’s small size and metal artifacts. However, this dedicated cardiac CT can clearly visualize even the minute internal structures of the stent, which is highly beneficial for clinical practice,” said Chen Jinlei.

Remarks:To learn about GE Healthcare's participation inFor more details on the 81st China Medical Equipment Fair (Spring) (CMEF), pleaseClick the live stream link below or long-press the QR code to watch.

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