GE to partner with Cerner for product integration, sales

GE to partner with Cerner for product integration, sales

Company also hires Seshadri away from Kodak

GE Medical Systems continues to grow the scope of its digital image management business. The imaging modality and PACS powerhouse has signed a strategic alliance with Cerner to integrate the HIS firm's HNA Millennium RadNet RIS with GE's PACS technology. GE will unveil more details of the product integration effort at this month's Radiological Society of North America meeting.

As part of the alliance, Kansas City, MO-based Cerner gets access to GE's distribution and support capabilities in North America. GE has also agreed to purchase 670,000 shares of Cerner's common stock at $22. The investment represents roughly 2% of Cerner's outstanding shares.

In other news, GE has reached an agreement with Access Radiology of Lexington, MA, to offer the teleradiology firm's Framewave product line as part of its PACS offerings. The agreement is nonexclusive, and both companies will continue to directly sell and service their existing product lines. The Milwaukee, WI-based vendor has also signed an agreement with Micro Medical Systems to distribute the Sioux Falls, SD-based company's CardioNet and EchoPro cardiology database software products.

In personnel developments, GE has lured highly regarded industry veteran Sridhar Seshadri away from his post as vice president of Kodak's Health Imaging division.

Seshadri takes on responsibility for services marketing for the company's Integrated Imaging Solutions and Health Net Services business. He will report to Caren Mason, general manager for Americasservices marketing.

The hiring of Seshadri marks the second time in as many years that GE has signed on a prominent executive from a competitor's PACS group. Vishal Wanchoo left his position as vice president of marketing for Agfa Medical to become general manager of the Mt. Prospect, IL-based IIS group in late 1997 (PNN 12/97).

In keeping with its policy in personnel matters, Kodak declined to comment on the departure of Seshadri, other than to say that an acting manager has been named. No further details were available.

In any event, Seshadri joins a company that has rapidly been landing PACS contracts. In recent months, GE has received a $4.9 million deal from VA Memphis and a multimillion-dollar, multiphase installation at Northwestern University Medical Center. The IIS group also received a $2.5 million order for a second phase of an all-digital environment at the University of Illinois in Chicago and a $1.5 million project for the first of a five-phase installation at Deaconess Hospital in Billings, MT.

• Search again
• Homepage