GE Healthcare has announced a new $100 million contract with a European imaging company and new investments in 3D printing, robotics and virtual patient monitoring.
The $100 million contract with Affidea, a European advanced diagnostic imaging, outpatient and cancer care services company, aims to deploy imaging and digital technologies across Affidea’s network.
“Our goal is to support doctors and our operational teams for the benefit of our patients by using data analytics as a new way of orchestrating patient care and improving their experience,” Giuseppe Recchi, CEO of Affidea Group, said in the announcement. “We are very happy that we could collaborate with GE Healthcare on this important project, which will accelerate the delivery of data-driven precision health.”
Affidea operates in 273 centers in 16 European countries, performing more than 14 million diagnostic examinations every year. The healthcare provider also sits on the Imaging Board of IBM Watson and Microsoft Cloud. GE Healthcare is the $20 billion healthcare business of GE, offering medical imaging, monitoring, biomanufacturing and cell and gene therapy technologies.
GE Healthcare will install new equipment across Affidea’s centers over the next three years, including 60 new MRIs, 50 ultrasound devices, 40 CT scanners and 30 X-ray machines. The contract also includes a six-year service agreement. The deal also expands the existing pharmaceutical collaboration between the two companies to include GE Healthcare’s new contrast media product used in MRI exams, Clariscan. The deal encompasses the deployment of Affidea’s Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) using GE Healthcare’ intelligence platform, Edison, at scale.
In addition to its major contract with Affidea, GE Healthcare also announced this week a series of investments and collaborations with three companies that specialize in 3D printing, surgical robots and virtual care monitoring.
One of the collaborations is with Massachusetts-based Formlabs, which manufactures advanced, affordable 3D printers that allow clinicians to print anatomical models. The collaboration will enable radiologists to use GE Healthcare’s Advantage Workstation to prepare 3D CT or MRI data that can be ready for 3D printing on Formlabs system or viewable in virtual or augmented reality.
GE Healthcare also announced a $240 million minority investment in CMR Surgical, a U.K.-based surgical robotic developer with a system called Versius. GE Healthcare will combine its portfolio of surgical imaging systems and AI tools with CMR Surgical’s Versius solution.
In addition, GE Healthcare invested in Decisio Health, a Houston-based software company specializing in virtual care monitoring and clinical surveillance that provides a real-time, consolidated view of patients across care settings. The investment will combine GE Healthcare’s digital clinical platforms with the visualization software to merge latent and retrospective data and real-time patient data.
Amy joined TriMed Media as a Senior Writer for HealthExec after covering home care for three years. When not writing about all things healthcare, she fulfills her lifelong dream of becoming a pirate by sailing in regattas and enjoying rum. Fun fact: she sailed 333 miles across Lake Michigan in the Chicago Yacht Club "Race to Mackinac."