GE HealthCare (Nasdaq:GEHC) announced today that it has appointed Dr. Taha Kass-Hout as its first chief technology officer (CTO).
Kass-Hout’s responsibilities include leading a new GE spinoff science and technology organization. He reports to GE HealthCare President and CEO Peter Arduini.
According to a news release, the role includes driving the company’s D3 precision care strategy. This framework emphasizes GE HealthCare’s smart devices. D3 brings together data and insights with the aim of optimizing the clinical and patient journey. This enhances the company’s ability to enable precision care, he said.
“GE HealthCare has a strong track record of industry-first technologies and a pipeline of product innovations focused on improving patient care,” said Arduini. “As a cardiologist, digital and ML expert, Taha has excellent clinical and technological experience. Under his leadership, our new science and research organization will drive greater end-to-end alignment within our core research and product development divisions to deliver innovative solutions that will change the future of healthcare and enhance our ability to enable precision care.”
About Dr. Taha Kass-Hout
Prior to joining GE HealthCare, Kass-Hout served as VP, machine learning and CMO at Amazon and Amazon Web Services. His role there included establishing and leading health AI strategy and technologies.
In addition, Kass-Hout served two terms in the Obama Administration in leadership roles at the FDA. He was the FDA’s first chief health information officer. Kass-Hout also served as director, information science and informatics for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“As a clinician, public servant, and digital health and ML expert, I am honored to join the GE HealthCare team, whose passion, purpose and commitment to lead the digital transformation and improve patient outcomes and suppliers clearly aligned with mine,” said Kass-Hout. “I am excited about what lies ahead and the great opportunity to deliver on GE HealthCare’s mission to create a world where healthcare has no borders and establish a new frontier in advancing personalized diagnostics and therapy for people.”
About the CTO position at GE HealthCare
Kass-Hout’s new role includes working in partnership with GE HealthCare’s four business segments: imaging, ultrasound, patient care solutions and pharmaceutical diagnostics. The company also expects to work in partnership with different regions and engineering and machine learning teams.
GE HealthCare said its new science and technology organization works to achieve its goal of advancing the future of health care. This includes delivering personalized care throughout the patient journey. The company said that researchers are innovating for the health care ecosystem on its staff.
It also seeks to implement digital strategies from software development to device integration and cloud adoption. Its regional research teams help connect and execute its external engagement strategy, GE HealthCare said.
“One of the biggest dilemmas our customers face is providing personalized care in the right way, getting the right diagnosis with the right data,” said Arduini. “With our D3 precision care framework, GE HealthCare is uniquely positioned to help our customers leverage data across healthcare systems, solve diagnostic challenges and develop personalized approaches for better patient outcomes, and increase productivity at the same time.”
In case you missed the spinoff news
The official result of GE’s healthcare business came into office yesterday, January 4, 2023. The company began trading on the Nasdaq market and joined the S&P 500.
GE announced its plans to spin off its medtech business in November 2021. Its board signed off on the agreement in November 2022. GE made a pro rata distribution of approximately 80.1% of the outstanding GE HealthCare shares to GE shareholders . He held approximately 19.9% of the outstanding shares of GE HealthCare common stock.
Chicago-based GE HealthCare is No. 6 on our sister site Medical Design & Outsourcing‘s Big 100 ranking of the largest medical device companies in the world. It brings in about $18 billion a year in annual revenue. The company also registers more than $1 billion a year in R&D spending, and has 51,000 employees.
GEHC shares rose 0.9% to $61 each in mid-morning trading today. The MassDevice MedTech 100 Index – which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies – was up 7.4%.
