IBM is stepping up

By Peter Loftus
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
CLEVELAND (Dow Jones)--The chief executive of International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) sees a huge business opportunity in making the U.S. health-care system more efficient.

"Someone is going to drive incredible progress," IBM Chief Executive Sam Palmisano told a conference on medical innovation at the Cleveland Clinic Tuesday. "Someone is going to unlock this incredible economic opportunity. And I suggest, why shouldn't it be us?"

Palmisano sees IBM providing everything from electronic-health records technology to ultra-tiny personal devices that read DNA and cost less than $1,000. He likened those technologies to health-care equivalents of universal bar-codes in the retail industry, which made that industry more efficient.