SWAT Project Highlight: Healthymagination in Rural China

One of the highlights of the ECLP program for many members is the SWAT project, a corporate-wide project focusing on a problem that is top-of-mind among corporate leaders, such as our CMO, Beth Comstock. For more on SWAT and Commercial Excellence projects, see this great post by Sam.

Over the last two months I have had the pleasure of leading a diverse team of ten ECLPs from Brazil, China, and the U.S. as we explore the healthcare needs for rural patients in China. Here is a quick look at the project:

Our goal is to find “enterprise solutions” for rural healthcare in China. These solutions will focus primarily on prevention and primary care and will utilize the full breadth of GE know-how from all GE businesses. Our diverse team consists of representatives from GE Capital, Aviation, Healthcare, Water, Energy, Lighting & Appliances, and the Government team. Each ECLP offers expertise in their field and unique opinions on how to evaluate the problem.

Since the majority of our team members are not from China and/or the healthcare industry, we have spent significant time getting up to speed on the industry and market conditions in China. The team has used GE’s extensive libraries of previous market research to gain a basic understanding of the issues involved, and we are in the process of reaching out to internal GE experts in each field. The team has also commissioned an outside research firm to explore the needs of the rural patients, hospital administrators and physicians, as well as the needs of local government officials. Finally, the team will be visiting the rural clinics in person prior to our global ECLP conference in January. These visits will give us first-hand knowledge of the challenges each stakeholder faces in bringing affordable healthcare to rural patients.

After completing the first stage of the research project, we will present our findings to GE leaders during a “workout” session in January. During this session, our team will work with these GE leaders to brainstorm ideas for additional project research, explore possible solutions to the problem areas that we have identified during the first project phase, and examine next steps for the implementation of these solutions. Although much of the project research will be China-specific, my team’s goal is to create a global recommendation that can be applied as the GE rural healthcare template for similar situations in other developing markets, such as India or Africa.

Check back in a few weeks for a project update and video blogs from the trip to the rural health clinics!

Posted by Jeff