Dive Brief:
- GE Healthcare is moving hundreds of employees from its Barrington, IL, facility to downtown Chicago in coming months, the company announced Thursday.
- Noting the Windy City’s rise as a technology hub, officials said they hope to capitalize on the growth by bringing together software engineers, software developers, data scientists, product analysts and project managers from across GE Healthcare, Transportation and Digital.
- The goal is stronger cross-company collaboration and innovation with startups and health systems.
Dive Insight:
The move underscores GE’s commitment to finding digital solutions to today’s healthcare problems. The company currently employs about 5,000 software engineers and plans to invest more than $500 million in software by 2018, according to the Chicago Business Journal.
Officials hope to build a library of deep learning applications on the GE Health Cloud and partner with major hospitals and health systems on digital health solutions. This fits firmly into the trend that Healthcare Dive found at HIMSS17 this year where many were looking to machine learning and artificial intelligence to help operations.
In December, GE Healthcare announced a partnership with Boston Children’s Hospital to bring digital solutions to pediatric brain disorders. The effort builds on the company’s Centricity 360, a cloud-based service for streamlining clinical collaboration on images launched in 2013.
A GE Healthcare spokeswoman told the Journal that the downtown facility — located in the city’s Loop district — will eventually house about 1,000 employees. GE Transportation’s Digital Solutions business already has its headquarters there.