Medical technologies and services provider GE Healthcare is among the largest foreign investors in the Indian healthcare system over the last two decades.
Its research and development facility at Bangalore comprising 1,700 workers is among the largest such facility outside the United States, said the President and Chief Executive Officer of GE Healthcare Terri Bresenham.
She told reporters in Coimbatore on Wednesday that while most of the medical equipment companies in India imported 80 per cent of their equipment, GE Healthcare designed and manufactured 30 per cent of its equipment in India itself. “The primary reason is not the low cost of business here but the availability of high-quality thinkers and innovators and effective players in the delivery system.”
Many of the equipment being designed for the Indian market with emphasis on low cost and high quality of service were now being used in Western countries also.
She was in the city on Wednesday to mark the inauguration of a digital radiography equipment at Sri Ramakrishna Hospital.
The company, she said, had grown rapidly over the past two years and was focussing on designing equipment that provided high-quality service at affordable cost to the people. Besides the Central Government, she said that the company was also working with most of the State Governments to improve the healthcare sector.
The Tamil Nadu Government, she noted, was probably the first one to come out with insurance cover for diagnostic purposes also.
Ms. Bresenham said that India had one of the most affordable pricing in healthcare in the world.
