[Related to the Apply the Concept on page 152] A report
from the American Council on Competitiveness noted
that “there has been some recent progress in the digital
health sector, which aims to better integrate information
and software technologies into all aspects of healthcare.”
The report also concluded that “the U.S. has rather poor
health outcomes relative to other developed countries and
stands out as having exceptionally low healthcare productivity when measuring outcomes against spending.”
a. Briefly discuss the evidence for and against U.S. health
care performing poorly relative to other countries
when comparing outcomes to spending.
b. If the U.S. health care sector makes increasing use of
information technology, will it be likely to employ
more workers or fewer workers than if it fails to widely
adopt this technology? Briefly explain.