Microsoft and GE Partner On Healthcare

theodp writes "Microsoft and General Electric are forming an as-yet-unnamed new health-care technology company. Based near Microsoft's Redmond headquarters, the company will be established next year with about 750 employees drawn from GE, Microsoft and elsewhere. 'High-quality, affordable healthcare is one of the biggest challenges facing every nation, but it's also an area where technology can make a huge difference,' said Steve Ballmer. 'Combining Microsoft's open, interoperable health platforms and software expertise with GE's experience and healthcare solutions will create exciting opportunities for patients and healthcare providers alike. Working together, GE and Microsoft can help make healthcare systems more intelligent and cost efficient while improving patient care.' Has someone been watching those iPad Healthcare case study videos?"

Re:Pipe dream

[Anonymous Coward]

Affordable health care is a pipe dream. The more efficient healthcare becomes the more margin there is for profit. I liken it to the cost of gas...

Where I live health care is free. And I know, TANSTAFL, we pay through taxes, but it has still proven to be a more effective system. See point 3 and 4 here: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/08/five_myths_about_health_care_a.html [oregonlive.com]

Re:Pipe dream

[InsightIn140Bytes]

In Europe health care is usually paid by everyone in form of taxes, and if you have to go to hospital, government pays large amount of price. This is especially true for costly operations, ICU (where one night costs something like 1000e) or if you have to spend long times in hospital. It does have its own problems (everyone must pay for the health care no matter if they used the services or not), but if something happens then it really is affordable to everyone.

Re:Pipe dream

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in BC, Canada it works like this:
Emergencies go NOW.
Everyone else goes on the list in FIFO order. If I remember correctly, if you cancel you go back to the end of the line.
My Wife was on the Gall Bladder removal list for about 5 months before she had it out. The doctors told here if she wanted it out sooner, have a big greasy meal to trigger an attack and have it done as an emergency. She chose to wait. On the day of her surgery I dropped her off at the hospital in the morning. I picked her up late afternoon. No money exchanged hands. A couple of days later she felt great.
I'm an American living in Canada for almost 18 years now. I'll gladly take Canadian health care over US health care. You need to go to a doctor? GO. You don't worry about figuring out how to pay for it. No crappy HMO telling you you can't go to your preferred doctor. The only shortcomings are waiting times, but if it's an emergency you get taken care of NOW.

Too bad it doesn't cover dental.

Re:Sign...might as well get it over with

[ScrewMaster]

I haven't seen a BSOD in a long while.

Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they didn't happen. [about.com]

Windows 7 is configured by default to restart immediately after a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) or other major system problem. This reboot usually happens too fast to see the error message on screen.

I've had Windows 7 BSOD (actually, I've seen a few different colors), usually because of a driver problem at startup. The last one was due to a multi-port USB -> RS232/485 serial converter. Installed the drivers and *POW*, instant BSOD when we restarted the system. To Win7's credit, we let it run an automatic repair (which took about an hour) and when it was done everything worked fine. I have no idea what it did, but it did manage to fix itself.

The converter used an FTDI chipset: I've had driver issues with those things before, on a number of products from different vendors that all used one of FTDI's chipsets.