GE Healthcare invests US$1bn in training for healthcare professionals

Published: 30-Jul-2015

Targeting optimised efficiency, patient outcomes and analytics


GE Healthcare will invest more than US$1bn over the five years in training for more than two million healthcare professionals worldwide, with the aim of helping them improve healthcare from within through education programmes and solutions. These solutions will be geared to meeting local needs and will include new clinical, product application, technical and leadership training and education.

As part of this commitment, GE Healthcare will continue to work with healthcare providers to build programmes that may also include technology, finance and consultancy services to help improve healthcare delivery and drive change in the industry.

'Our focus is to develop meaningful, relevant education solutions that will help healthcare professionals create long-term value and positive measurable impact,' said Mario Lois, General Manager, Global Education Services at GE Healthcare. 'By combining our heritage in medical technology, healthcare IT, software and life sciences, we can provide enhanced learning, insights and best practices that can make a real difference.'

Healthcare providers will be able to embrace new GE education solutions, to train their staff better, optimise equipment use, and ultimately improve patient care

GE Healthcare will provide on-the-ground, online and remote training mostly as part of a commercial partnership with customers to help optimise health providers’ skills for real life clinical situations. Examples could include training provided by key opinion leaders among customers; virtual video conference training; clinical product training by certified clinical applications specialists; biomedical training supervised by technical instructors; and leadership training managed by certified GE professionals and consultants.

The company is developing new education solutions around two critical goals – greater access and measurable outcomes. For example, there are ongoing global pilots of a new class of remotely-controlled robotic telepresence training solutions that will enable any GE expert or clinical partner to deliver highly effective, interactive, hands-on training sessions for practically any device and any user in a given hospital, regardless of the expert trainer’s location. These new solutions hope to provide an experience and effectiveness that is as if the trainer was working alongside them.

GE Healthcare is also working on maximising the quality and measurable impact of its new training solutions. Some of these outcome-based education offerings leverage data and analytics to better identify training needs and translate them into customised training plans, with the ability to measure 'before and after' impact on key metrics, such as reduction on radiation dose or patient throughput.

Lois added: 'Healthcare providers continue to experience increased patient volumes and decreased time for training. And it’s clear to us that the skills of healthcare professionals using medical equipment are at least as impactful on the resulting outcomes, as the quality of the product itself. Healthcare providers will be able to embrace new GE education solutions, to train their staff better, optimise equipment use, and ultimately improve patient care.'

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