As per a proposal to buy some health IT market share and expedite the adoption of its electronic medical records products, the healthcare unit of General Electric - GE Healthcare - is offering $100 million in interest-free, deferred-payment loans to doctors' offices.

The announced $100 million program proposal - called Stimulus Simplicity - has been launched by GE Healthcare, along with the Connecticut-based conglomerate's financing unit, GE Capital. It proposed plan is a part of GE's $6 billion "Healthymagination" program for not only giving a boost to access, affordability and the quality of healthcare, but also to transform the medical device market.

The loans have been specifically designed as bridge loans between procurement of the Simplicity apparatus and cash flowing from a part of the massive $20 billion stimulus earmarked for EMR in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The loans will be extended to medical offices, clinics and hospitals for the purchase of GE Simplicity EMR software.

Going by the eligibility for stimulus payments' condition that NCHIT David Blumenthal has indicated for such plans, it is expected that big companies would require a quick tie-up with hospitals and clinics for their big iron projects, or else necessitate a move to software as a service plan with diminutive upfront expenditure.