Customer Story_GE Healthcare_GFT-899_v4

GE Energy Connections
GE Healthcare Solution
Deploys Field Agent*
Technology to Boost
OR Efficiency
Hospital leaders must balance financial considerations
with patient safety and the quality of services provided.
These twin priorities often intersect in the operating
room (OR), the heart of a hospital.

ORs account for 35% of total hospital costs and 60% of
revenue 1 . A recent study reported $11,700,000 in new
revenue is needed to have the same impact as a $100,000
reduction in operating costs 2 . So, if hospital operating costs
can be reduced without compromising patient care, this
helps a hospital’s financial footing.
GE is helping hospitals meet the constant challenge of
providing high quality, efficient patient care that delivers
optimal financial return. GE Healthcare has developed a
secure health cloud platform—utilizing GE’s Automation &
Controls’ Field Agent technology—designed to help hospitals
reduce costs by improving OR efficiency.
GE Healthcare has developed a
secure health cloud platform—
utilizing GE’s Automation &
Controls’ Field Agent technology—
designed to help hospitals reduce
costs by improving OR efficiency.

Secure Health Cloud
Leverages Hospital Data
The secure health cloud platform integrates with clinical
workflows while managing the volume, velocity, and variety
of healthcare data through an integrated analytics and
visualization engine.
The platform stores, aggregates, enriches and sends data
back to the customer for viewing. In a pilot program, GE
Healthcare has teamed up with GE’s Automation & Controls
to develop Carestation* Insights, an Industrial Internet
solution which captures and leverage data from anesthesia
machines in hospital ORs.
Carestation Insights software applications turn machine data
into insights that can be used to optimize operations, in this
case the OR. The pilot program leverages GE’s anesthesia
domain knowledge to create a solution that is simple, easy to
install and maintain, secure, and scalable.
As with any Industrial Internet solution, the key is the data.
And hospitals, their processes, and their equipment produce
an enormous amount of it. “So much device data at a hospital
is thrown away,” says Jay Hanrahan, Product Manager at GE
Healthcare. “Only a small amount is used for electronic
medical records (EMR). We see an opportunity for hospitals to
capture and leverage that data to improve their operations as
well as patient outcomes.”
Data privacy and security are key considerations for any
medical data solution, so the secure health cloud is designed
to securely transmit data and protect sensitive patient
information. Privacy of data is paramount, so patients are
“deidentified”and data is encrypted before it is sent to
the cloud.
up to 10
Machines
WAN
Predix
Connectivity
Predix Cloud
CaaS Monitoring / Ops
Service Provider
APM, EQI
“We see an opportunity for
hospitals to capture and leverage
that data to improve their
operations as well as patient
outcomes.”
Cloud
Connectivity
Solutions
Field Agent with
Predix Machine
Built In
Networking Stack / WAN Connection
Edge Applications
(business/solution specific)
Predix Machine / Net (UMF)
Runtime (Java/OSGi)
Standardized Data
Aquisition Network
RSTi EP I/O
with Modbus TCP
Jay Hanrahan,
Product Manager,
GE Healthcare
OS (Linux, Windows & RTOS)
LAN / PAN /FAN

Field Agent Provides Secure
Industrial Internet Connectivity
A critical component of Carestation Insights is the Mini Field
Agent, developed by GE’s Automation & Controls. Field
Agent technology enables customers to connect to and
utilize GE’s Predix* Platform to easily collect data, analyze
trends, and uncover insights that improve operations and
asset performance.
“Our traditional anesthesia
service team, who have some
networking expertise, are able
to get the units configured, and
up and transmitting data very
quickly without IT support.”
Jay Hanrahan,
Product Manager,
GE Healthcare
The built-in security features of the Field Agent are critical
to the Carestation Insights platform. The Field Agent has
no open ports, uses encrypted channels, and features a
tamper-resistant housing to resist unauthorized access.
And customers benefit from the fact that GE is continually
enhancing its platform security features to adapt to the
continually evolving security climate.
Hanrahan says the Field Agent was very easy to install.
“We wanted to keep the Carestation Insights platform
very simple and appliance-like, and the Field Agent fit the
bill,” he says. “Our traditional anesthesia service team,
who have some networking expertise, are able to get the
units configured, and up and transmitting data very quickly
without IT support.”

Pilot Program Yields
Applications Suite
Of course, the success of the Carestation Insights platform
ultimately depends on the development of applications on
top of it that provide customer value. The GE Healthcare
team worked with customers to identify some opportunities
for addressing real-world problems and developed the first
applications designed to harness the power of connected
Carestation data and analytics to help hospitals drive
improved quality and financial outcomes. The first two
dashboards developed and tested with customers were
Agent Cost and Checkout.
Anesthetic agents can be the biggest ongoing expense
associated with anesthesia units; using less anesthesia
agent can reduce costs. The Agent Cost Dashboard provides
insight into anesthetic agent usage and costs across the
anesthesia department. Using this data, hospitals can
support “low flow” initiatives to drive down costs.
Pre-check of anesthesia equipment is important but
sometimes gets overlooked. OR scheduling workflow may
benefit from a central source of daily checkout status. So, the
second dashboard, Checkout Dashboard, tracks anesthesia
machine checkout status across the department to help
ensure life support equipment functions properly. Using data
from this dashboard, hospitals can measure and manage
compliance to machine checkout procedures to support
operations and quality programs.
The GE Healthcare team
worked with customers to
identify some opportunities
for addressing real-world
problems and developed the
first applications designed
to harness the power of
connected Carestation data
and analytics to help hospitals
drive improved quality and
financial outcomes.

A Foundation for the Future
This is just the beginning for Carestation Insights. “We’re
building a platform of solutions supported by Field Agent
technology,” says Hanrahan. “Today we’re using only a subset
of the 231 machine data points captured to drive our first
2 applications. In the future, we can analyze all these data
points, leading to a substantial number of applications.”
1
Source: The Advisory Board Company, A Smarter Operating Room, Key
Trends in OR Technology, February 10, 2014
2
Source: HCIA Inc., Deloitte & Touche, LLP, “The Comparative Performance
of US Hospitals: The Sourcebook,” 1997
GE Energy Connections
Automation & Controls
2500 Austin Dr
Charlottesville, VA 22911
1-800-433-2682 or 1-434-978-5100
www.geautomation.com
© 2016 General Electric. The GE brand and logo are trademarks of General Electric. *Trademark of General Electric.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Specifications are subject to change without notice.
11.16 GFT-899