Michael Barber Named Vice President, healthymagination

GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt today named Michael Barber head of healthymagination, GE’s global commitment to reduce costs, improve quality and expand access of healthcare for millions of people.

Barber, 48, is a 27-year veteran of GE and since 2005 has served as chief technology officer for GE Healthcare.

“Over the last four years, Mike has led all aspects of product development for advanced healthcare technologies,” Immelt said. “Mike knows how our technology can help patients, he knows what doctors, clinics and hospitals need to improve care and cut costs and he knows how to lead teams. With his deep experience in engineering and technology and his strong operations and process-driven expertise, Mike is the right leader to lead healthymagination and to grow our healthcare partnerships globally.”

Barber joined GE in 1982 and has held a variety of roles of increasing responsibility within GE Healthcare. In 2001, Barber was general manager for Components Engineering, and from 2002 to 2005 he was the general manager for Global Components Operations for GE Healthcare.

Barber started as an electronics design engineer in the X-ray Product Development Group, developed the control architecture (Advantx) for the X-ray product line as a software project leader, managed the Hardware, Firmware and Diagnostics team within the CT business, and managed the Functional Engineering team in the MR business. Barber returned to X-ray as the manager of the Digital X-ray Detector Platform, which replaced the need for film in X-ray procedures.

GE Healthcare has more than 5,000 engineers, technologists and scientists working in diverse fields such as MR and CT engineering, patient monitoring, anesthesia, life sciences, imaging contrast agents and health-related research and development.

Barber is a graduate of the Milwaukee School of Engineering, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering.

healthymagination: Reduce costs, improve quality and expand access

Healthymagination is GE’s $6 billion commitment to bring high quality health care at lower cost to more people around the world through our advanced technologies and research and development capabilities.

Like ecomagination, healthymagination will tackle one of the world's greatest challenges while generating returns for our businesses.

To bring healthymagination to life, we are undertaking a range of global actions and partnerships, including business investments, research and development, new product introductions, employee actions and consumer empowerment programs.

GE will spend $3 billion over the next six years, as part of healthymagination, on healthcare innovation that will help deliver better care to more people at lower cost. In addition, the company will commit $2 billion of financing and $1 billion in related GE technology and content to drive healthcare information technology and health in rural and underserved areas.

Under healthymagination, by 2015 GE will:

• Invest $3 billion in research and development to launch at least 100 innovations that lower cost, increase access and improve quality by 15 percent. GE will also apply its expertise in services and its suite of performance improvement tools for impact in these areas. These actions will strengthen GE Healthcare’s business model.
• Work with partners to focus innovations on four critical needs to start: accelerating healthcare information technology; target high-tech products to more affordable price points; broaden access to the underserved; and support consumer-driven health.
• Expand its employee health efforts by creating new wellness and healthy worksite programs while keeping cost increases below the rate of inflation.
• Increase the “value gap” between its health spend and GE Healthcare’s earnings to drive new value for GE shareholders.
• Engage and report on its progress. GE will engage experts and leaders on policy and programs and create a GE Health Advisory Board, which will include former U.S. senators Bill Frist and Tom Daschle and other global healthcare leaders.

Healthymagination will draw on capabilities from across GE, including GE Healthcare, GE Capital, GE Water, NBC Universal, the GE Global Research Center as well as the GE Foundation, the philanthropic arm of GE.

For more details about healthymagination, visit www.healthymagination.com.

About GE

GE (NYSE: GE) is an innovative and diversified technology company taking on the world’s toughest challenges. From aircraft engines and power generation to financial services, healthcare, and television programming, GE operates in more than 100 countries and employs about 300,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.ge.com.

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our "healthymagination" vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality and efficiency around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 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.