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GE Healthcare is a $18 billion (USD) unit of General Electric (GE). It employs more than 45,000 people worldwide and is headquartered in Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. GE Healthcare is the first GE business segment headquartered outside the United States. In 2004, just before the completion of the $9 billion acquisition of U.K.-based Amersham plc, the formerly named GE Medical Systems was renamed GE Healthcare.

GE Healthcare has a broad range of products and services that include medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement solutions, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies. These enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases, and other conditions earlier. The company's 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.

From a brief period from the close of the Amersham acquisition in April 2004 - June 2005, GE Healthcare was organized into two primary business segments: GE Healthcare Technologies, led by Joseph Hogan, and GE Healthcare Bio-Sciences, the former Amersham business segments that were led by Peter Loescher. Those business segment names and organizations were formally dropped in June 2005.

GE Healthcare currently has 6 primary business units:

• GE Healthcare Global Diagnostic Imaging, headquartered in Waukesha (suburb of Milwaukee), Wisconsin, USA

The Diagnostic Imaging business includes X-ray, digital mammography, Computed Tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance (MR) and Molecular Imaging technologies.

• GE Healthcare Clinical Systems, headquartered in Wauwatosa (suburb of Milwaukee), Wisconsin, USA

This business provides a range of healthcare technologies and services for clinicians and healthcare administrators. It includes ultrasound, ECG, bone densitometry, patient monitoring, incubators and infant warmers, respiratory care and anesthesia management.

• GE Healthcare Integrated IT Solutions (IITS), headquartered in Barrington, Illinois, USA

IITS provides clinical & financial information technology solutions such as departmental IT products, RIS/PACS (Radiology Information Systems/Picture Archiving and Communication Systems) and CVIS (Cardiovascular Information Systems), as well as revenue cycle management and practice applications.

• GE Healthcare Medical Diagnostics, headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, USA

Medical Diagnostics researches, manufactures and markets imaging agents used during medical scanning procedures to highlight organs, tissue and functions inside the human body.

• GE Healthcare Life Sciences, headquartered in Uppsala, Sweden

This division produces technology for drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing and cellular technologies. It also makes systems and equipment for the purification of biopharmaceuticals.

• GE Healthcare Surgery, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

This provides tools and technologies for cardiac, surgical and interventional care, from cardiac catheterization labs, diagnostic monitoring systems, data management systems to mobile fluoroscopic imaging systems, navigation and 3D visualization instrumentation.

While it has offices around the globe, GE Healthcare has major regional operations in Buc (suburb of Paris), France, and Hino, Tokyo, Japan.

In 2003, GE Healthcare acquired Instrumentarium (including its Datex-Ohmeda division), a producer, manufacturer, and supplier of anesthesia machines and mechanical ventilators. To satisfy regulatory concerns in the United States and in Europe, GE Healthcare was forced to divest the Spacelabs Medical division of Instrumentarium. Currently, GE Healthcare owns 80% of all anesthesia machines in the United States and 60% of the machines in the world. The former Instrumentarium business was incorporated into GE Healthcare's Clinical Systems business segment.

In 2004, the former Amersham plc business segments were separated into the GE Healthcare Medical Diagnostics and Life Sciences business segments.

Also in 2004, GE Healthcare along with other healthcare companies built a research reactor for neutron and unit cell research at GE's European Research Center near Garching (outside of Munich), Germany. It is the only such reactor currently in operation.

In 2005, Sir William Castell, CEO of GE Healthcare and former CEO of Amersham plc stepped down as CEO to become Chairman of the Wellcome Trust -- a charity that fosters and promotes human and animal research -- in the United Kingdom. Former GE Medical Systems CEO Joe Hogan became the overall CEO for the GE Healthcare business.

In September 2005, GE Healthcare and IDX Systems Corporation announced that they entered into a definitive, $1.2 billion merger agreement for GE to acquire IDX, a leading healthcare information technology (IT) provider. The acquisition was completed in January 2006. IDX was folded into GE Healthcare Integrated IT Solutions, which specializes in clinical information systems and healthcare revenue management.

In January 2007, Abbott Laboratories agreed to sell its in vitro diagnostics and Point-of-Care diagnostics divisions to General Electric for more than $8 billion. These units are slated to be integrated into GE Healthcare. The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary conditions, has been approved by the Boards of Directors of Abbott and GE and is targeted to close in the first half of 2007.

• President and CEO: Joseph M. Hogan
• President and CEO, Global Diagnostic Imaging Mark Vachon
• President and CEO, Integrated IT Solutions Vishal Wanchoo
• President and CEO, Clinical Systems Omar Ishrak
• President and CEO, Life Sciences Peter Ehrenheim
• President and CEO, Medical Diagnostics Daniel Peters
• General Manager, Surgery Peter McCabe

• Official Site.