Neha Desai
Case Western Reserve University - Weatherhead School of Management
Chris Laszlo
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General Electric (GE) Healthcare, a subsidiary of GE, has collaborated with a multitude of organizations to create a Magnetic Resonance (MR) machine designed for the National Football League (NFL) to detect concussions. I was fortunate enough to talk with Barry Black, a key innovator and head in the MR division at GE in Milwaukee about this innovation and its future implications for not only the NFL but for multitudes of people worldwide. In fact, one of the leading problems in road traffic accidents is concussions. Concussions, as an invisible injury, often leads to neurological problems and unpredictable deaths. With the ongoing concussion research and the creation of this device, many lives would be saved. This work by GE impacts the UN's goal to halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2020. I was also fortunate enough to gain additional insights of this work from a GE engineer perspective via Namratha Reganti.
The innovation that Mr. Black and I discussed is a "more sports-specific MR scanner for the NFL". The NFL has had to deal with more than 80 concussion-related lawsuits on behalf of more than 2,000 NFL players. In addition, it has been found that an increasing number of retired NFL players who had suffered concussions started to develop cognitive problems as they aged. These problems include Alzheimer's, dementia, depression, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Diseases such as CTE are directly caused by repeated head traumas. Although there is a lot of knowledge of diseases such as CTE, these diseases are only diagnosed post-mortem. The NFL and doctors of the players, on the other hand, wanted research and innovations to be done in order to be able to create a "preventative measure in dealing with concussion repercussions". Therefore, they contacted GE to begin a movement towards potentially benefiting the life of many players.
GE, specifically, incorporated its talents as a diagnostic imaging company to create the MR machine. GE took an approach from an engineering perspective and utilized the tools and information it already had from their MR machines. However, they knew they needed more insight from medical professionals to quickly create a more accurate and efficient model. Therefore, they conducted a Head Health Challenge where a multitude of brilliant minds showcased their ideas to improve GE’s ideas for the MR machine. GE then chose winners whom they began to collaborate with to improve their approaches to creating a better machine. Although they have a machine created, they’re continuing to improve their design to provide more accurate diagnostics for NFL players.
In addition, because of the collaboration, the medical industry has been greatly impacted. Concussions are an invisible injury. There is no proper way to detect a concussion, and, frankly, there is not much information on concussion treatment. Furthermore, they have only been able to be researched post-mortem. As a result, many people have suffered from concussions and were negatively impacted by it without knowing. Car accidents are one of the leading causes of concussions. In fact, about 1/5 of car accident deaths are attributed to concussions. This fraction is only of the known concussions whereas many concussions are undiagnosed.
With this research and with this device, there is a potential to save a multitude of lives. They "would be able to diagnose, research, and treat concussions while they are still alive." With the research, ideas for methods for treatment of concussions and prevention of death have also been studied. All in all, this work and research are ultimately helping to achieve the UN's goal to decrease the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents. Moreover, this research has the implication to provide more information on preventative measures for cognitive diseases which could transform neural medicine as a whole.
The original idea had come about directly from the NFL association and doctors who had worked with the athletes. Before this innovation, concussions were only researched post-mortality. On the other hand, they wanted a study for prevention of mortality from concussions. Specifically, they wanted to be able to detect and assess a concussion as early as possible. As Mr. Black said, they wanted us to "provide some research and better understanding in the area. Specifically, to utilize GE's diagnostic imaging equipment within the MR loop, we are working with them to build a scanner that is going to provide right image quality to do diagnostics." With that idea, GE not only began to use its own engineers and research to create this device, they also sought to collaborate and fund with other agencies and medical experts in order to accelerate the production and research.
The impact on this innovation in business is that it will allow for them to expand into a new realm. While they have machines for the medical field, by collaborating with sports associations they would be able to enter sports medicine. Sports are a worldwide phenomenon. Therefore, GE’s work would be highly utilized worldwide. As Barry stated, “GE’s efforts could expand the company into impacting the world.” Because of the lack of information when it comes to concussion injuries, this work, and research is already having a huge impact on the medical industry. Previously, there have not been a distinct way to diagnose concussions. Because concussions are often undiagnosed, they can lead to a preventable death. As stated before, in at least 1/5 of car accidents, the passenger(s) unknowingly suffer from concussions and the effects of it. With this research and this device, many of those deaths could be prevented. By being able to finally diagnosed, for the long-term, the research will be able to transform neural medicine and create new insights for the treatment of cognitive disturbances such as concussions. By 2020, this research will significantly impact the UN's goal to reduce global car accident deaths.
Lastly, GE’s collaborative efforts are bringing together many brilliant minds for one cause and have the ability to continue to do so. Many different hospital research centers and companies have actively assisted in improving GE’s innovation already. Not only does this bring about the idea of collaboration for the greater good, but also has the potential for many associations to significantly impact the medical field together.
As stated before, GE’s innovation with the NFL will give the business the ability to enter a new realm of medicine - sports medicine. The company is able to increasingly expand their product line worldwide. In addition, this provides a beneficial public relations opportunity for the company in order to highlight their work in diagnostic tools and imaging. With the collaboration with many medical associations, this also provides an opportunity for the company to become partners and bring more of their products to those medical associations. Overall, the company would be able to help athletes worldwide and aid in providing information for an unknown medical issue - significantly increasing the popularity of the company as a whole.
The company’s efforts to highlight concussions and bring more information for treatment will benefit society as a whole. There is a multitude of people that suffer from concussions. Not only athletes and car drivers, but also civilians lives could be saved with this innovation and the research conducted. GE also values feedback from their consumers. The feedback received from the players could help them improve other products to further impact the medical industry. In addition, GE’s goals are to make medicine a more comfortable field for the patients. By increasing channel count, they would be improving comfort for the patient. This has the potential to decrease the emotional gap between medical experts and their patients.
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Barry Black; Namratha Reganti, Head Manager of MR Division, Wauwatosa
