GE’s latest foray into pumping the public and customers up about its company wide plans is called Healthymagination, which is meant to show GE’s commitment to healthcare around the world. According to The New York Times, GE will spend $80 million on promoting its healthcare plans using an odd name that no one will understand or remember. An executive at GE’s ad agency told the newspaper that the conglomerate’s efforts in the sector are about “better healthcare for more people”–an initiative that hardly matters to shareholders or even people who are ill. “Better healthcare for more people” is, or should be, the primary goal of the healthcare industry. To turn that effort into a slogan is crass.
There is no reason for anyone to better understand how and why GE operates its healthcare business as it does. It should be a universal assumption that GE, like any other well-operated company, will do its best to create cutting-edge and safe products, sell them at competitive prices, and make itself money.
Healthymagination means nothing at all, really. It is GE’s stab at a claim that it is a good citizen in a world where companies mean only to profit from their products. But, like every other company in the healthcare business, it should knows that it is the best business practice to help the medical community and leave the bragging about it to others.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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