Strong 1Q orders fuel GE Healthcare revenues

The GE Healthcare division of GE Electric announced strong first quarter 2005 financial results, fueled mostly by a 33 percent increase in sales growth.
   
Revenues climbed to $3.321 billion, compared with $2.495 billion in the first quarter of FY04. Profits increased 21 percent to $409 billion, compared with $339 billion in the first quarter of FY04.
   
According to GE Healthcare, it experienced strong demand for Imagination Breakthrough products, including more than $140 million in orders of the LightSpeed Volume CT scanner. Contracts, such as a clinical IT collaboration with Intermountain Healthcare (IHC), impacted quarter revenues. The two entities are developing software for next generation electronic medical records. IHC also will be adopting GE's computerized physician order entry (CPOE), cardiology and pharmacy IT throughout its 2 million-patient system.
   
GE Healthcare also in inked a three-year, single source contract from Novation, the supply company of VHA Inc. and the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) to provide the VHA and UHC healthcare organizations GE Healthcare's full line of injectable contract media products for x-ray, magnetic resonance and ultrasound diagnostic imaging.

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