GE to invest in enhanced training for Middle East healthcare professionals as part of new US$1 billion global investment initiative

GE Healthcare has announced a new global plan to invest more than US$1 billion over five years in the development of its educational offerings to reach more than two million healthcare professionals worldwide by 2020 including in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey region.

The investment will help them improve healthcare from within through enhanced training programs and solutions for physicians, radiologists, technologists, midwives, nurses, biomedical engineers and beyond. Solutions will be geared to meet local needs and will include new clinical, product application, technical and leadership training and education. 

Skander Malcolm, President & CEO of GE Healthcare EAGM, said:  “GE Healthcare’s education strategy integrates technology and localization in the design and deployment of tailored education solutions. Further, adding to GE’s global learning and development capabilities, we have also invested in a specialized local workforce, among the largest of its kind in GE Healthcare, to provide the scale and know-how required to deliver these programs with our partners. Our focus is to create meaningful, relevant education solutions that will help customers create long-term value and a positive impact in their healthcare systems, hospitals, clinics and communities.”

As part of this training commitment, GE Healthcare will continue to work with healthcare providers to build strategic programs that may also include technology, finance and consultancy services to help improve healthcare delivery and drive transformational change in the industry.

GE Healthcare will provide on-the-ground, online and remote training as part of a commercial partnership with customers to help optimize health providers’ skills for real life clinical situations. Examples of implementation could include peer-to-peer training provided by key opinion leaders among customers; virtual video conference training; clinical product training by certified clinical applications specialists; biomedical training supervised by technical instructors; and leadership training managed by certified GE professionals and consultants. GE Healthcare expects its new education solutions to upskill healthcare professionals worldwide and drive further growth in the industry.

The global health sector, especially in developing markets, is facing critical workforce shortages. Yet, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), investment in the education of doctors, nurses, and midwives represents just 1.8 percent of total global expenditure on health.

As outlined in the newly published GE Healthcare whitepaper entitled, Education Solutions for Better Health Outcomes³, 77 percent of respondents in a recent survey of over 110 Middle East and Africa healthcare leaders, rated training and education to improve skills and enhance capacity as the single most important need to improve healthcare in their country.

Since 2013, GE has delivered technical, clinical and leadership training to over 10,000 healthcare professionals in the region, with over 1,000 courses and 50,000 hours delivered in the last 12 months alone.

The program builds on GE Healthcare’s regional training initiatives including:

• Localized education and training: A new US$100 million commitment was announced in February 2015 for the development and delivery of localized education and training offerings to help address health challenges in the Middle East, Africa, Turkey, Russia and CIS by 2018. This commitment builds on the opening of the Healthcare Skills and Training Institute in 2013, launched in partnership with King Fahad Medical City in Saudi Arabia, the first GE Healthcare training center to be located at a customer site, which has trained over 6,000 healthcare professionals to date.
• Addressing the rise of non-communicable diseases such as breast cancer: As part of an integrated solution developed with the Saudi Ministry of Health’s National Breast Cancer Screening Program, supported by GE and Komen, 150+ hours of training for 100+ medical and support staff, combined with local disease awareness efforts, has helped the program screen over 20,000 women.
• Building local competencies & localized innovation: GE Healthcare has recently signed an agreement with the Egyptian Ministry of Health to boost the country’s healthcare technology management system, with plans to establish a Biomed Center of Excellence in Egypt. The initiative is supported by WHO and has potential to significantly enhance biomedical services across the country.
• Addressing rising healthcare costs and improving healthcare efficiencies: GE has trained 400+ hospital staff in change management and performance improvement methodologies across 20 Hospitals in the GCC region focusing on Operating Rooms (OR) optimization. Among other improvements, the initiative improved OR utilization by up to 47 percent and reduced surgical waiting lists by up to 58 percent.

Taking Patient Care To A Whole New Level

GE Healthcare is developing new education solutions around two critical goals – greater access and measurable outcomes.  For example, a new class of remotely-controlled robotic telepresence training solution  will enable any GE expert or clinical partner to deliver highly effective, interactive, hands-on training sessions for practically any device and any user in a given hospital, regardless of the expert trainer’s location. Based on ongoing pilots in the UK, Spain, U.S. and Australia, these new solutions provide an experience and effectiveness that’s remarkably close to the trainer being physically there, working with them.

GE Healthcare is also working on maximizing the quality and measurable impact of its new training solutions. Some of these new outcome-based education offerings leverage data and analytics to better identify training needs and translate them into customized training plans, with the ability to measure “before and after” impact on key metrics, such as reduction on radiation dose or patient throughput.