GE Healthcare, a leading provider of healthcare technology, announced today a structured partnership to enable service offerings for all aspects of their healthcare IT lifecycle – planning, deployment, customization, and ongoing maintenance. Through the partnership, GE Healthcare will certify HCL on its core healthcare IT offering Centricity Enterprise and integrate HCL into its Digital Day One effort which helps new hospitals in emerging markets open their doors as fully digital hospitals. 

In November, 2008, GE unveiled its new “Digital Day One” initiative that provides an “IT starter kit” that aims to reduce the digital divide between new hospitals in emerging markets and those in mature markets, providing every hospital with the same opportunity to improve the way healthcare is delivered. Aspetar Hospital in Qatar and the Qatar Foundation are two of the first beta sites to partner with GE Healthcare on this healthcare IT solution. 

This initiative will provide rapid deployment, low-cost licensing and an expanded ecosystem. During initial testing, “Digital for Day One” pilot sites improved efficiency by 33 percent in construction of new hospitals. Through this new partnership, HCL will play a critical role in helping to support these new hospitals in realizing the “fast track” deployment option, in addition to supporting customers worldwide in leveraging these new capabilities to optimize their existing healthcare IT systems. 

“Making Digital Day One a reality will require a massive ecosystem, with systems integrators playing a critical role.To have an industry leader like HCL join forces with us is a significant step forward and a great endorsement of our approach,” said Laurent Rotival, vice president and general manager, GE Healthcare IT.“Together, we send a clear message to the marketplace about our focus on quality and customer satisfaction, which will be critical to all of our efforts by working closely with HCL.”

“We’re aligned with GE’s vision and approach in every way and are proud to be their strategic systems integration partner,” said Shami Khorana, president for HCL Technologies for North and South America. “This partnership is crucial to accelerating our market position and provide significant new value to our existing customers by focusing. We are also working closely with GE to expand our sales efforts and working to take a leadership position as a complete healthcare IT provider from pre-sales to deployment to support.” 

The two companies are already ramping up HCL staff on Centricity Enterprise and related GE Healthcare IT offerings in preparation for certification and in-market customer engagement. 

Courtesy of GE Healthcare