The Barrington, Ill.-based healthcare IT division of General Electric Co. (GE) and Microsoft Corp (Redmond, Wash.) has announced the name of their joint 50-50 healthcare IT venture, Caradigm. The two companies say Caradigm will be aimed driving a paradigm shift in the delivery of care by enabling health systems and professionals to use real-time, system wide intelligence to improve healthcare quality and the patient experience.

GE and Microsoft expect to launch the new company in the first half of 2012. The two companies say they will demonstrate future product capabilities at HIMSS12, the largest healthcare IT trade show, taking place next week in Las Vegas, Nev.

The two companies say Caradigm will develop and market an open, interoperable technology platform and collaborative clinical applications focused on enabling better population health management to improve outcomes and the economics of health and wellness.   The two parent companies bring complementary expertise to this new venture and will contribute intellectual property, including the following: Microsoft Amalga, an enterprise health intelligence platform, Microsoft Vergence, a single sign-on and context management solution, Microsoft expreSSO, an enterprise single sign-on solution, GE Healthcare eHealth, a Health Information Exchange and GE Healthcare Qualibria, a clinical knowledge application environment being developed in cooperation with Intermountain Healthcare (Salt Lake City) and the Mayo Clinic

GE Healthcare and Microsoft intend to demonstrate future product capabilities that will be available from Caradigm at this month's HIMSS12 conference in Las Vegas. Demonstrations are being scheduled in both the GE Healthcare (No. 2635) and Microsoft (No. 1629) booths. In addition, Caradigm's future leadership team will host media and analysts on Tuesday, Feb. 21, from 6-7:30 p.m. in Room 101, Sands Expo Convention Center.