GE says $6 billion healthcare drive to cut costs

By Scott Malone and Susan Heavey

BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Electric Co said on Thursday it plans to invest $6 billion by 2015 to help its healthcare customers cut costs, in a push the biggest U.S. conglomerate is calling "Healthymagination."

The drive will focus on research and development of new technologies to cut by 15 percent the cost of using GE's CT-scan machines and other devices.

It will also aim to spur sales of systems to track medical records electronically -- a key priority that the Obama administration is allocating stimulus spending to encourage.

GE will focus on simpler, less costly equipment, such as portable ultrasound machines, which can be more quickly phased in at smaller hospitals and medical facilities in the United States and emerging markets abroad.

"We're going to have more products at different price points in the future," Chief Executive Jeff Immelt told reporters in Washington. "We can make money solving big problems on big global stages with technology."

Immelt compared the initiative to GE's "Ecomagination" green-business push, which it launched four years ago and last year sold $17 billion of wind turbines, compact-fluorescent lightbulbs and other energy-saving devices.

GE and chipmaker Intel Corp last month said they were joining forces in another healthcare venture, working to develop devices to help doctors monitor patients health remotely.

Immelt has made healthcare a major focus for GE saying that major changes are needed to the U.S. healthcare system and arguing that GE stands to make money by selling equipment that will help to make those changes.