Frugal Innovations @ GE Healthcare Low cost ECG, Baby Warmer, and Ultrasound Scan

General Electric (GE) developed an ultralow-cost electrocardiogram (ECG), an $800 ECG machine for rural India that is portable, battery-operated, easy-to-use, and easy-to-repair. Normal GE ECG machine costs about $5,000 and $20 for a scan and the equipment is highly complex, heavy, bulky, and needs a skilled technician to operate it, as well as highly technical service support. GE built the machine using commodity components, realizing huge cost advantages and produced millions of units that reduced cost further with economies of scale and for the sake of reducing the power consumption and increase battery life eliminated monitor and used printers found on public buses and in movie theaters.

Another innovation from GE is the baby warmer, known as “Lullaby,” which was designed focusing on the requirements of maternity homes and hospitals (80 percent of which use baby warmers). This device which costs $12,000 in United States but the frugally innovated  device will only costs $3,000, which is a big boon for emerging countries like India, China, Brazil, etc. The Lullaby is now reportedly sold in 62 countries, including Brazil, Russia, Egypt, Dubai and Italy.

GE’s drive to miniaturize technologies in order to make them more mobile couldn’t be better illustrated than with the breakthrough Vscan technology. Roughly the size of a smart phone, it houses powerful ultrasound technology that potentially helps redefine the physical exam and improve patient care by enhancing a doctor’s ability to quickly and accurately make a diagnosis. For critical care clinicians, Vscan can offer an immediate look beyond patient vital signs with the potential to identify critical issues, like fluid around the heart. Vscan high-quality imaging is indicated for abdominal, urological, cardiac, obstetric and pediatric scanning.

Reportedly, there are over 30 products in GE’s Indian pipeline that are targeted at “the Indian and the emerging global markets” and will be launched by GE’s Bangalore Centre within the next three years. In 2001, General Electric set up a $175 million facility (the John F. Welch Technology Centre in Bangalore, India), which houses state-of-the-art laboratories and facilities to conduct R&D for GE businesses worldwide. The center supports 4,200 scientists, researchers and engineers who frugally innovate in the healthcare, energy, transportation, aviation, financial and entertainment businesses. At this facility GE conducts advanced state-of-the-art medical research and innovation, working on breakthroughs such as molecular imaging and diagnostics, micro ultrasound machines and next-generation MRI systems.

For businesses to survive in the emerging markets they need to do adopt the frugal innovation making the products or redesigning the highly complex and costly products into affordable, easy to use products to be used easily particularly in rural markets where there will be problems like power shortages, lack of highly trained healthcare professionals and lack of infrastructure like roads, power, buildings etc. GE Healthcare has been successfully adopted frugal innovation and India based R&D center is at the heart of its strategy.