Wold imagines tomorrow today
GE Healthcare exec at forefront of technology
a portable ultrasound machine, no bigger than a smartphone, that a pregnant woman can scan over her abdomen anytime and instantly see detailed images of the baby she is carrying.
Furthermore, those images are instantly transmitted to her ob-gyn.
The machine can be taken home with the patient for realtime monitoring around the clock by a physician.
You don’t have to imagine such a machine. I held it in my hand this week at the Wisconsin corporate offices of GE Healthcare in the Milwaukee County Research Park in Wauwatosa.
Anders Wold, chief executive officer of Clinical Care Solutions for GE Healthcare, says the coolest thing about his job is he gets to see the future — today.
GE Medical will announce Friday the opening of a new repair operations center in Oak Creek at 120 W. Opus Drive, where the company will add 220 employees, ranging from advanced technicians and team leaders to repair development engineers who will provide service and maintenance for the cutting-edge medical diagnostic equipment being designed in Wauwatosa and manufactured in Madison and Waukesha.
“We have to imagine tomorrow today,” Wold says. “This is a transformational thing that is happening. We are shifting everything we do.”
GE Healthcare has grown its Wisconsin workforce to about 6,000 employees, according to company spokesman Benjamin Fox.
Wold says the advantages of maintaining GE Healthcare’s world technology hub in the Badger State are multiple, including the engineering talent in the workforce, the proximity to a strong university system and the presence of strong medical academic centers, including Froedtert Hospital, the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.
Wold has been part of GE’s Wauwatosa operations for more than a decade. A native of Norway, he took over the ultrasound and monitoring business a year ago and says it has been an easy transition.
“We have a lot of talent here. And the climate is familiar,” Wold said with a laugh. “Once people settle down here, they don’t want to leave.”
Since Wold is in a position to see the future before it happens to the rest of us, I asked him to give us four changes that are on the horizon for health care.
Artificial intelligence, “big data” and the “cloud” will fully transform health care. “Medicine is becoming increasingly data-focused, algorithmic and predictive,” he says. “Doctors and patients have more information at and on their fingertips than ever before. Tomorrow, datadriven insights from wireless biometric sensors and medical histories will be available to doctors before patients even set up appointments. The data in our DNA will empower doctors to make earlier, more accurate care decisions and even predict future health issues.”
Doctors will demand nextgeneration, lower-cost technology, with easier access. “Technology matters for clinicians, patients and the industry. Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen a 57% drop in exploratory surgeries and unnecessary procedures as they’re replaced by new tech, resulting in billions of dollars in
cost savings and millions of lives impacted.”
Hospitals will be smaller and more spread out, and patients will leave them sooner. “The number of hospital beds in the U.S. may be cut in half by 2050. It’s all about the patient. Patients want access and available care anytime. Technology innovation and shift to care outside the hospital will enable this.”
Precision medicine will provide personalized health care. “It’s not just coming. It’s here. Leading doctors are overlaying data from medical imaging, sensors and lab tests with genomics and electronic health records to turn that data into medical insights. The result: more timely, more targeted and more valuable personal patient outcomes.”
As we ended the interview, I would have been remiss in my duties if I did not ask Wold for his take on the nation’s health care debate.
The question: Should access to health care in America be a fundamental human right, as a prerequisite for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
Or should it be reserved for those who can
Anders Wold
Title: President and CEO, GE Healthcare Clinical Care Solutions
Expertise: Clinical Care Solutions provides medical solutions including ultrasound, monitoring technology, maternal infant care, anesthesia and respiratory care and cardiology
Native country: Norway
Experience: Thirty-two years in the ultrasound industry
Education: Graduate, Norwegian Military Academy; bachelor of science, biomedical electronics, University of Salford in the United Kingdom; business studies at BI Norwegian Business School
Family: Wife, Torill, three children, two grandchildren, and dog named Chilli
Best advice ever received: “You can never be too good a listener.”
Favorite play: “Phantom of the Opera”
Personal: Coach of the Norwegian Cross-Country Ski Team in 1982 afford it or are lucky enough to have it provided for them by their employer?
Wold did not hesitate in his answer. “It’s a right.”