Here is a brief extract from a valuable book that described how outsourcing was losing the sort of crucial healthcare information that can come from the supposedly "unskilled workers."
Appelbaum, Eileen, Peter Berg, Ann Frost, and Gil Preuss. 2003. "The Effects of Work Restructuring on Low- Wage, Low-Skilled Workers in U.S. Hospitals." In Eileen Appelbaum, Annette Bernhardt, Richard J. Murnane, eds. Low-Wage America: How Employers Are Reshaping Opportunity in the Workplace (Russell Sage Foundation): pp. 77-117.
85: "because food service and housekeeping are not typically seen as distinct sources of hospital success or expertise, some hospital administrators have outsourced these functions or their management to external firms that specialize in these areas. On the other hand, food service workers, housekeepers, and nursing assistants all have direct contact with patients, and contacts can affect patients' experiences in the hospital and satisfaction with care. In response, other hospital administrators have sought to improve employee skills within these jobs and ensure a more stable workforce through more careful selection, cross-training, and work reorganization."
6 comments:
Check out this video illustrating Hillary Clinton's hypocrisy on outsourcing and other topics. It really shows her true colors.
Absolutely true. I spent a week in the hospital years ago. The people I saw most were the housekeepers, aides and orderlies. This was Detroit, and they were black, and they were wonderfully kind and warm adn reassuring -- in part (I am sure) because they had jobs that paid okay, and that they knew were pretty safe. Also, probably because the people who chose to work in hospitals tend to be invested in helping other people. The nurses were less wonderful, being busy and important. The doctors were pretty awful. It's important to remember that people who work in hospitals at any level learn a lot about patients and patient care. They know how people are feeling and how to make them feel a little better, and they know when to call a nurse.
In my opinion, there are no unskilled jobs. You want to see an unfixable mess from hell, try to work with a filing system, after a bad file clerk has left. All you can do is take every piece of paper out and refile it.
Even shoveling a sidewalk takes skill and good sense. I speak as one who took an ugly fall this winter.
My wife is training the umteeenth temp to take over her job when she pulls the plug. This person is a refugee from the real estate mortgage blow up. Not too smart.
The hospital will not hire permanent only temps and some temps are management!!! They hire lots of "consultants" who come in and get management to change procedures then when those changes don't work they hire another bunch of "consultants". It is an endless cycle. This is at a hospital that is highly reguarded.
The wife's job is not something a temp can take over. She has worked all the positions and learned all the computer interfaces and has deep knowledge of the technical side of the lab.
I hope when one of you goes in that hospital they don't lose your lab results or lose your specimen or worse log the wrong results in your file. You may get lucky and f up the bill so bad you don't have to pay.
Good Luck!
Blinder has said 40M jobs are vulnerable to offshore outsourcing. Part of this is offshore outsourcing training and education. You're not going to believe this but there are reports that corporations, receiving large grants of taxpayer funds are using those funds not to train Americans, but to train cheap foreign labor on guest worker Visas. (H-2B, H-1B, L-1).
I wanted to announce a new commmunity blog, The Economic Populist
It's a community blog, which means anyone can write a blog and have it go to the front page, it's user content driven. There is also a forum for short artilces and discussion threads.
We have a couple of great economists already blogging and I hope more people stop by to read what they have to say.
We link over here because of the great writing.
Really a fantastic blog.Keep it up............
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