GE has a couple of things going on here today, first of all with the tracking of H1N1 with a report every 24 hours being generated. GE will be using it’s 
data base of 14 million records to query for the information. GE Health sells and installed their own EHR system Centricity and has additional software offerings.
Secondly in the news today GE has announced their new eHealth web platform which is a business site to connect providers and payers, and will provide a personal health record.
Anytime a business intelligence arm of healthcare comes in with offerings, my stance is to ask questions and then ask more questions. Some of the PHRs may not be as private as you think, and in this case GE Healthcare states they are focusing on PHRs for individuals outside the US. The websites states that the patient is in control with what information is shared and seen by who.
Unlike Google Health and HealthVault, it costs $60.00 a year and has a diabetes module that can be added on for $30.00 a year. The website states that you need to give notice in the final 3 months of the annual contract to cancel.
Their PHR has a place for devices that connect and report data.
Your LifeSensor Benefits At a Glance (for payers and insurance companies from the website)
- Lower utilization costs.
- Promote disease management and wellness programs.
- Help employers increase employee productivity and reduce employee absenteeism.
- Eliminate unnecessary office visits and tests.
- Promote pay-for-performance programs.
- Attract small and large group employers.
- Improve the accuracy of matching and identifying data.
- Increase member brand loyalty.
- Integrate medical information and claims systems seamlessly .
- Keep confidential member data safe and secure.
All of this is combined on one website portal for patients, providers, payers and hospitals. BD
GE Healthcare and the Centers For Disease Control struck a one-year deal to set up what the healthcare conglomerate calls a "real-time" monitor of Swine Flu activity in the United States.
The agreement calls for Fairfield, CT.-based GE Healthcare's Medical Quality Improvement Consortium to provide a report to the CDC every 24 hours from its database of 14 million electronic medical records. The company says the reports will enable the center to monitor the spread of both the H1N1 influenza virus (commonly referred to as Swine Flu) and seasonal influenza strains.
"This was the first time the CDC has even had this type of potential to gather this data, so they kind of said, 'Let's give it a shot,'" Dente said. The deal began with a conversation between himself and a colleague at the CDC back in April, when the first reports of H1N1 began to widely circulate around the globe.
UPDATE: CDC taps GE Healthcare to track Swine Flu | MassDevice - Medical Device Industry News
G.E. said it was investing $90 million to get the new eHealth unit going. Its offerings include software for securely storing and sharing patient information, a Web portal that can pull patient information from various sources and present it to doctor, and a Web-based personal health record, called LifeSensor. It was built by a G.E. partner, InterComponentWare.
So is G.E. going head-to-head in the emerging field of personal health records — controlled by individuals, not a doctor, hospital or insurer — with the likes of Google and Microsoft?
Not really, Mr. Wanchoo said. EHealth will be an international business, and health ministries in places like Saudi Arabia and Singapore want to build digital health networks and also want personal health records to be part of those networks. Google and Microsoft, Mr. Wanchoo said, are not yet offering personal health records in many nations.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/ges-bid-to-connect-computerized-health-records/
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