GE Healthcare has been in a funk for awhile and John Dineen, its new chief executive has been looking to make a splash.

What better way than announce a 5-year, $200 million initiative to develop a national electronic health record system in conjunction with Mayo Clinic, Intermountain Healthcare, Montefiore and UCSF?

Company press releases tell us the system will help providers share medical records, improve the efficiency and quality of care and cut costs. Later iterations will facilitate evidence-based decision making and more informed patient decisions.

Good luck on that John, and we’ll check back in 5 years.

Meanwhile, 60% of GE Healthcare’s $17 billion annual revenue comes from diagnostic imaging which has been plagued by factory-production glitches and diminishing insurance payments, according to the Wall Street Journal.

As well, some customers complain GE’s machines are too complex and require too much training.

The imaging thing drove a 7% drop in GE Healthcare’s operating profit since January, 2007 and forced the unit to riff a few hundred employees last summer.

So why risk diverting attention from an ailing core business on a project that won’t contribute to the bottom line until the Big O is old enough to qualify for social security?

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt figures ya’ gotta’ start somewhere and the field is too lucrative to pass up. “At the end of the day,” Immelt said in a press release, “Governments are going to spend money on things that drive productivity. Strategically, it’s a great place (to be) long term.”

About the only people reveling amid the Great Economic Crisis of 2008 are the ones living in the caves of South Waziristan.

Al-Qaeda had been trumpeting for years that the US economy was poised to collapse. They thought it would be “the force of the jihadists that’s going to push us over the edge,” Georgetown Professor Bruce Hoffman told the Washington Post.

Turns out it was a bunch of bad bets on real estate in Stockton, California but never mind because several US officials and private analysts believe the Crisis has increased the risk of a terrorist attack on US soil.

These people believe US intelligence and defense budgets are going to be cut to free up cash for domestic spending, and al-Qaeda will attempt to exploit border protection and other national defense systems that may be adversely impacted as a result.

But the greater threat appears to be to the very survival of pro-Western regimes such as nuclear-tipped Pakistan.

Pakistan had been struggling with poverty and a growing insurgency before the Crisis. Now, it is a mess. Its currency reserves have been obliterated, its currency has been devalued, and inflation is squeezing just about everyone. China recently declined Pakistan’s pleas for a bail-out and there is a chance the country could default on its debt obligations.

This unhealthy mix has already produced a marked uptick in anti-Western demonstrations and violence, no doubt incited by al-Qaeda. Right now Pakistan’s teeming cities are easy pickings for the recruiting arms of terrorist organizations. It remains distinctly possible in fact that the thugs who held Mumbai hostage for 72 hours were from Pakistan.

CIA director Michael Hayden said just before the Mumbai attacks that his agency had not detected increased communications or other signs of an impending terrorist attack on US soil, which is good but let’s not forget that al-Qaeda’s only two attacks on the US homeland occurred during the first months of new presidential administrations.

During the Great Economic Crisis of 2008, fewer patients are seeking hospital care and more need help paying for it. Meanwhile hospitals are finding it more difficult to borrow money for facility and technology updates, according to a survey by the American Hospital Association.

More than 30% of 736 hospitals in the survey report a moderate to significant decline in patients seeking elective procedures. 40% have seen a drop in admissions. Uncompensated care rose 8% in the summer of 2008 versus a year earlier.

Meanwhile hospitals, like many institutions rely on investment income to make ends meet but precipitous stock market declines have turned those gains into losses.

Overall, Q3 margins for hospitals in the survey fell to -1.6% in 2008 vs. 6.1% in Q3 the previous year.

As a result 60% of the hospitals plan to or are considering administrative cost reductions. Similarly, 53% might reduce staff, and 27% might reduce services.

Capital projects will also take a hit, as the credit crunch has increased borrowing costs by 15% year-over-year. As a consequence, 56% of survey respondents are considering or will delay renovations and plans to increase capacity, 45% will delay purchasing clinical technology or equipment, and 39% will delay purchasing new information technology.

The situation is not expected to improve any time soon. Medicaid rosters are likely to skyrocket as the Crisis unfolds. Few hospitals break even on this population even now, and things would get worse if state budget woes trigger further Medicaid cuts.

“Hospitals are a critical part of our nation’s economy as the second largest private sector source of jobs,” noted AHA President Rich Umbdenstock. “In addition, every dollar spent by a hospital supports more than $2 of additional business activity in a community. The economic crisis is taking its toll on patients, communities and hospitals alike.”