News in brief - Feb. 21, 2005

N.J. insurance commissioner resigns - GE Healthcare to resell PatientKeeper's software - NEC enters health care market

N.J. insurance commissioner resigns

The head of the New Jersey Dept. of Banking and Insurance, who criticized movement by Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey toward considering becoming a for-profit, shareholder-owned company in 2003, has announced that she will resign, effective March 1.

Holly C. Bakke, who has served as the state's banking and insurance commissioner for three years, said that she wanted both to spend more time with her son and get more involved in her community.

She announced she would quit despite being asked by New Jersey Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey to stay on with the administration. Codey recently took office, stepping in for former Gov. Jim McGreevy, who resigned last year.

Bakke had spoken against Horizon's unofficial expressions of interest in going for-profit, and her stance contributed to the company's taking the option of conversion off the table in August 2003.

Some state officials recently have met with Horizon officials to discuss the possibility of a conversion in the future, which likely would yield millions of dollars for state coffers, but so far the company has not made a formal announcement that it is again interested in a conversion.

Although she is most well-known for a variety of pro-consumer auto insurance reforms, Bakke also helped introduced certain initiatives that were aimed at increasing the affordability of health care for low-income residents, including the establishment of a task force that examined the problems of the uninsured population and the difficulty encountered by individuals and small businesses in affording coverage.

GE Healthcare to resell PatientKeeper's software

PatientKeeper, Brighton, Mass., announced in January an agreement under which GE Healthcare will resell its software under GE's Centricity product line for physicians. PatientKeeper sells software that enables physicians to access patient data from hospital-based information systems via handheld devices when they are on rounds.

NEC enters health care market

NEC Solutions America announced in January that it is entering the health care market, launching a division to sell products and services in North America. The division's first product will be a secure single-sign-on product that uses biometric finger-imaging to control and identify an individual user's access to computer systems. The Rancho Cordova, Calif.- systems integration company is a subsidiary of Tokyo-based NEC Corp.