IDXC Idx Systems (MM)

GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), announced today the completion of the acquisition of IDX Systems Corporation (NASDAQ:IDXC), a leading healthcare information technology (IT) provider. Together, GE Healthcare, a global leader in medical imaging, healthcare services, life sciences and information technology, and IDX will create a leading healthcare IT vendor with one of the most comprehensive suites of clinical, imaging and business information systems available. GE expects the acquisition to accelerate efforts to seamlessly connect clinicians from physicians' offices to hospitals with comprehensive, enterprise-wide electronic health record (EHR) solutions, creating a digital community that supports safe, efficient and cost-effective patient care. In 2005, the RAND Corporation, a non-profit research organization, released information indicating that America's healthcare system could save more than $81 billion annually and improve the quality of care if it were to broadly adopt computerized medical records. "The combination of these two companies positions GE as a leading provider of global healthcare information solutions and, by further enabling the integration of our customers' IT systems, enhances our ability to help them streamline healthcare costs, reduce medical errors and enhance and improve the quality of patient care," said Joe Hogan, president and CEO of GE Healthcare. "In addition, our expanded IT product offerings will provide healthcare practitioners with powerful new capabilities and tools, like comprehensive EHRs, to help physicians diagnose and treat disease earlier than ever before." With the completion of the transaction, Vishal Wanchoo, president and CEO of GE Healthcare's Information Technologies business, will lead the combined business. GE Healthcare's IT business will have its global headquarters in Barrington, Illinois, with major offices in Burlington, Vermont; Boston; Seattle; and London, along with satellite offices both within and outside the United States. According to Wanchoo, the acquisition enables GE to offer a comprehensive suite of financial and business management solutions for group practices, hospitals and integrated delivery networks (IDNs), as well as a combined industry-leading radiology information system (RIS) and picture archiving communications system (PACS) solution. GE's broad product offerings will help healthcare providers deliver the best quality of care while optimizing business performance. "GE's acquisition of IDX allows us to provide new and more comprehensive ways for healthcare practitioners to manage the explosion of data that has emerged from the healthcare industry," said Wanchoo. "GE's IT tools, capabilities and global scope have the potential to transform the way healthcare is delivered." About GE Healthcare GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform and treat disease, so their patients can live their lives to the fullest. GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases, and other conditions earlier. Our vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $15 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 43,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.