GE Healthcare buys a Web strategy

Most diagnostic equipment is an island of technology. Its output is a report or a printed file.

Now GE Healthcare has taken its first step toward linking all that data through its acquisition of Dynamic Imaging.

Dynamic Imaging has been pushing the idea of Web-based management of medical information files, that is networking based on Internet standards. It calls its system IntegradWeb, and the idea is to make Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS) Web-based.

The company offers what it calls a PACS Map (PDF) as a way to lead hospitals from proprietary to standards-based imaging networks.

Having GE behind the solution is not as big a deal as the GPhone, but it could have a similar impact in the imaging market. It means a major vendor is pushing a standards-based solution in a world dominated by proprietary offerings.

And it could be the start of a trend, once we understand that the words proprietary and standard do not go together.