Offshore

Stardate 57020.9 (02-09-2004)

Whoa! I realized today I totally spaced reviewing last weeks Star Trek: Enterprise. It's done now. I am wondering where I ever got the idea I was qualified to do something like this. I remembered Scott Adams "The Dilbert Principle", and the chapter on programmers and engineers. Part of it said these people consider themselves experts on everything. Ok, so I do sometimes think that way.

I may be getting obsessed with the Wired article on offshoring to India. But there was this post about it that caught my attention:

"Offshore outsourcing is a very divisive issue, especially for an Indian who has been here half his life with an American education. For certain industries like Healthcare, outsourcing makes a lot of sense. The healthcare industry is in a tremendous crises. It's facing a huge demand (aging baby-boomers) with very high costs where employers would rather not pay any more. So any gains that can be made in outsourcing can certainly help in the healthcare of the Americans. From the WIRED article, regarding NJ Senator Turner - would she like more hospital beds or more votes to get elected?
I have done considerable work in the healthcare industry where it's estimated that almost 1 in every 4 dollars goes towards overhead costs. There are a lot of inefficiencies in this industry that are just very staggering. This is an industry where being proficient in software engineering ('SEI-CMM', ISO9000, etc) can be truly beneficial - healthcare systems are quite complex and with recent Federal regulations (i.e., HIPAA), a more engineered approach to building such systems is crucial. Not too long ago, it was unfortunate to witness a tech manager with his Ivy-league degree take a healthcare systems company down the tubes. He failed to realize the necessity of an engineering approach. (He was not a software engineer). The point here is that outsourcing or systems development is a management issue and not a political one. I don't know of any US company that has achieved SEI-CMM Level 3+, laying off or outsourcing their systems development. So, for certain industries like Healthcare to get the job done right - I'd invite competition from companies the world over, be it from Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, India, Ireland or Israel. I'd rather compete with these companies than hide behind the skirt of a politician."

I wrote a fairly polite response to the effect of working in the healthcare industry for almost twenty years, and I didn't agree. Privately I was thinking this person is nuts. I could believe the statistic about 1 in 4 dollars going to overhead (the joke about three types of lies in order of severity, lies, damn lies, and statistics comes to mind). But I cannot believe someone would suggest added more process tracking and procedures as a fix. I can't see anyone dropping their doctor because of non-compliance with ISO-9000. I have read a number of stories on nursing shortages where nurses quit because they spend more time on paperwork than patient care.

Using an engineering approach with healthcare? This one makes me question his statement about "considerable work in the healthcare industry". Your perspective changes when it's you or a loved one in the hospital, and the "engineering approach" goes against what you need. I learned to be skeptical of doctors. In my mid-twenties, my primary physician diagnosed me with high blood pressure, but refused to give me the exact numbers. I found out about a year later that my blood pressure was well within the normal range while giving blood. I dropped the guy soon after. "get the job done right"? This can be defined ten different ways by five people. He mentions federal regulation, but the states have jurisdiction over parts of the system as well. I'll agree that it is in crisis and probably broken, but the suggestions are crazy and unacceptable.

A scandal is forming in soccer. The state level has not heard from our region in over a year, and has never heard of the acting commissioner. The higher ups want to contact the old commissioner, who dropped out because her husband developed health problems. The region probably won't make it to the fall anyway, since the guy they never heard of has a new job and can't continue. No one is willing to step into the position. April and I have talked about going to the Layton organization next season regardless of whether soccer survives in Ogden.

Rachel had a surprise for me tonight, but she passed out on the way home from basketball practice, so I haven't found out what it is. I have a idea what it is. It is unusual for her to fall asleep like that, and not wake up even when I carried her in.

I glanced out the window a while ago. The full moon was peeking through a hole in the clouds, and lighting the cloud cover on the mountains in gray-white. Underneath that was a black band, and then the neighbors houses. If you mentally subtract that last part, it was an eerie picture.

End Of Entry