GE thinks environmental health with new healthcare tech

Considering the amount of technology equipment lying around the typical hospital or medical clinic, I'd be remiss if I didn't peek into the examining room every once in a while when it comes to green technology.

General Electric, the healthcare technology juggernaut, has actually updated its ecoimagination product portfolio this month in several ways that have relevance here.

Yes, I know, ecoimagination sounds rather Disney, doesn't it? It actually is a GE label that transcends the company's healthcare division. It refers to technologies that (shocker) help reduce cost and waste and have a reduced impact on the environment than comparable stuff. The one thing that is pretty cool about this label is that GE uses a third party to verify its environment claims. In addition, it has the claimed re-verified annually.

So, here's what's new in the GE ecoimagination healthcare portfolio:

• The Centricity Enterprise Electronic Medical Record solution, which the company estimates can reduce a 200-bed hospitals' paper consumption by 5.5 million sheets annually.
• More energy-efficient magnetic resonance systems that use about one-third less power than previous versions of the system.
• The GE Digital Mammography Platform, which can replace an analog system that produces about 27,400 films per year. Eco-impact here comes in reduction in need for physical storage AND in the need to dispose of the film responsibly at some point down the line.
• The GE WAVE Bioreactor system, which is something that is used in vaccine and biotherapeutics production. This one is actually a bit of an enigma. On the one hand, it can reduce annual power consumption by up to 43 percent compared to a similar system. On the other hand, it uses disposable bags, which I'm a bit ambivalent about. Are the bags biodegradable?