June 15th, 2009
GE buying health IT market share
GE Healthcare announced a plan to buy some health IT market share with up to $100 million in no-interest loans.
Under the plan, which it dubbed Stimulus Simplicity, the money will go to medical offices, clinics and hospitals to buy its GE Simplicity Centricity EMR software. The loans are designed as a bridge loan between purchase of the gear and money flowing from the Obama stimulus.
This follows IBM’s own bridge financing program, announced in April, valued at $2 billion. That money is tied to purchases of IBM services.
Big companies need to tie hospitals and clinics to their big iron projects quickly or many could move to software as a service plans with little upfront expense, given that NCHIT David Blumenthal has indicated such plans will be eligible for stimulus payments.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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