Outsourcing in the healthcare industry: Information technology, intellectual property, and allied aspects

The healthcare industry is being impacted by advances in information technology in four major ways: first, a broad spectrum of tasks that were previously done manually can now be performed by computers; second, some tasks can be outsourced to other countries using inexpensive communications technology; third, longitudinal and societal healthcare data can now be analyzed in acceptable periods of time; and fourth, the best medical expertise can sometimes be made available without the need to transport the patient to the doctor or vice versa. The healthcare industry will increasingly use a portfolio approach comprised of three closely-coordinated components seamlessly interwoven together: healthcare tasks performed by humans on-site; healthcare tasks performed by humans off-site, including tasks performed in other countries; and healthcare tasks performed by computers without direct human involvement. Finally, this paper deals with intellectual property and legal aspects related to the three-pronged healthcare services paradigm.