Announced on May 7, 2009, the General Electric blitz has put Obama-era Healthcare initiatives front and center – and EMR software is an integral part of the mix.

So far, the new Obama Administration has brought us a stimulus plan that included a healthy healthcare component with EMR mandates giving it teeth. An ingredient that seemed to be missing for producing concerted action among U.S. physicians was a big corporate response to Obama's initiative. Now, perhaps it is here.

May 7, 2009, should be inserted into your calendar as a day of "smart" bandwagon leaping. It's the day when General Electric launched "Healthymagination," a generous commitment of $6 billion "to enable better healthcare focusing on cost, access, and quality." Of this total, half (about $3 billion) is pledged by 2015 to foster healthcare innovation, delivering better patient care at lower cost, with EMR software packages for the public and private sectors becoming an integral part of the mix. With EMR packages in place to a much greater extent than currently, GE targets to improve healthcare access are likely to be met.

In fact, among the critical need areas outlined by Healthymagination is "accelerating healthcare information technology," a bullet point that implies proliferating EMR software and could well be the key. GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt had this to say, "Healthcare needs new solutions. We must innovate with smarter processes and technologies that help doctors and hospitals deliver better healthcare to people at lower cost."

Immelt seems to be echoing President Obama and his federal administrators as they've discussed the $787 billion stimulus with its billions set aside for EMR-related innovations. Mandates are now in place to "come onboard" with necessary modifications to the way we do healthcare in the U.S., including the January 1, 2011, starting point to begin receiving stimulus funds designated for EMR purposes. With that firm deadline looming for physicians and hospitals to bring the "paperless" revolution to their own offices and patient records, the race to beat the rush has begun as 2009 ticks down. But impetus is added when big corporate joins the bandwagon as GE has done. Former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle, a member of GE's Healthymagination advisory board asserts, "We can only find real solutions in healthcare when business, government, and their partners work together." How correct he is.