The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5) - Interesting take on outsourcing?

Interesting take on outsourcing?

Yes, it's been beaten to death...

http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/11/commentary/dobbs/dobbs/index.htm

hmm
Friday, March 12, 2004

How can doctors and surgeons be outsourced? I know reading x-rays is already being outsourced, but doctors and surgeons? I don't understand.

Friday, March 12, 2004

Telemedicine: the doctor sees you through a web cam.

There have already been performed surgical operations from a large distance.

Please excuse my poor English - it's not my native language, and my head hurts like hell after 20 hours of continuous coding.

JM
Friday, March 12, 2004

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1552211.stm

Just me (Sir to you)
Friday, March 12, 2004

> my head hurts like hell after 20 hours of continuous coding

I know what you mean! I've been up for 118 hrs now with no breaks doing brain surgery remotely. I only get $5/day but at least I have a job.

Offshore Brain Surgeon Working on Your Grandpa
Friday, March 12, 2004

I've also read about the possibility of putting the paitents on a plane to be sent to a foreign country for expensive surgeries, this was a serious article btw.

Bill W. Davis
Friday, March 12, 2004

"I've also read about the possibility of putting the paitents on a plane to be sent to a foreign country for expensive surgeries"

I've heard that too. HMOs could send people to india, then disneyland and still save money. (in some cases)

Friday, March 12, 2004

> Our trading problem is an externality

What trading problem?

> As a society and as a country, we experience many costs from outsourcing

We also experience benefits: cheaper goods and services, and a better return on the money we invested in these companies.

> Loss of jobs reduces ... Displaced, unemployed workers have higher ...

I thought that the idea of the state trying to control its own national economy went out of fashion with the fall of the Berlin wall; that there's no benefit to society in having full employment if the country itself isn't competitive in the global market.

Christopher Wells
Friday, March 12, 2004

The US has long benefitted from Health tourism: that is to say rich foreigners coming to the US for dental or medical treatment.

It can work the other way round. American citizens going for non-urgent operations to countries where health care costs are much cheaper than in Europe, and a fraction of the bloated prices in the US. In the UK it is already standard practice for many operations to be routed to France or Spain, where the waiting lists are shorter, and for many types of operation it would definitely be cheaper to fly people out to India.

The most expensive private hospital in Sri Lanka is a branch of the Indian Apollo chain, and it charges under $300 a day for its intensive care unit. Most westerners I know in Sri Lanka reckon they will get better treatment there than in their home countries.

I need to get some dental work done. I can do it here in Saudi or in Sri Lanka. Obviously I'm going to get quotes from both places and then decide.

Of course we are only talking about a small proportion of health care being outsourced since the greatest expenses are in emergency cases and their aftermath, drug costs, and long term geriatric care. With regard to the latter it might indeed make more sense to send the old dears off to the residence of the carers than to wait until they enter the developed world as illegal or legal immigrants to work in hospices and nursing homes.

Incidentally one activiity that could well be outsourced is economic schooling for undergrads; the "associate professor of finance" has produced one of the most ridiculous articles on offshoring I have ever seen - and that is difficult.

Stephen Jones
Friday, March 12, 2004

>>The US has long benefitted from Health tourism: that is to say rich foreigners coming to the US for dental or medical treatment.

Yes, that's why Rochester, Minnesota has Arab and Japanese programming on their cable TV system...

The Mayo clinic does a lot of advertising overseas to bring in foreign patients. The tend to be wealthy and to pay cash (and not to demand discounts like HMOs and Medicare do).

RocketJeff
Friday, March 12, 2004

Only way to ever get action on the whole outsourcing issue is to export several congresspersons jobs. Think about what they do and tell me they couldn't do it from the moon as well as they do it here.

old_timer
Friday, March 12, 2004

I talked to my brother in-law (an orthopedic surgeon who coincidently owns a software company for orthopods) about this.

He said the robot controlled scalpels, where the surgeon doesn't have direct feedback from "feeling" the patient doesn't work very well because the patient isn't immobile. The surgeon has to move around a bit to compensate.

So having a surgeon do it remotely means the surgeon is losing a pretty important sense: touch.

(Even with the microsurgery with the long rods they poke through small incisions, I think they can feel some feedback).

But, then lots of doctors who don't understand programming think IT can be outsourced easily :-)

The real Entrepreneur
Friday, March 12, 2004

Apparently someone attempted outsourcing the job of congressional aid to Iraq.

Keith Wright
Friday, March 12, 2004

A lot of Congressmen have already outsourced themselves to India. They do what the Indian outsourcers tell them to do in return for campaign financing.

Think I'm joking? Look into it.

Inside Job
Friday, March 12, 2004