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Medicine is interdisciplinary. Medicine requires engineering skills. Prosthetics? How about that metal plate holding a femur together? You think they buy that

Medicine is interdisciplinary. Medicine requires engineering skills. Prosthetics? How about that metal plate holding a femur together? You think they buy that off the shelf at Wal-Mart? Engineering is without a doubt the worst counterexample you could have provided. As for IT systems in medicine, just ignoring the digitizing of medical records, there are countless improvements that can be made in medicine at the IT level. If IT and research are completely partitioned and cannot interact, then they aren't considering the effect of IT on medicine. That means they're trending towards being a sub par institution. And your facetious J&J example is still entirely applicable. Deunionization of support and janitorial staff has caused worse overall outcomes for hospitals. Considering how dangerous staph infections are in hospitals, you've provided another stupid example. I'd much rather go to a hospital with unionized and well paid janitorial services than one saving 20% in costs and profiting off of minimum wage janitors. Your lack of imagination makes me hope you're not in charge of anything important.

dpark 10y ago
You think the guys designing prosthetics should be administering SAP systems for UCSF? They have the appropriate skills for this and it's a good use of their time? I'm not sure what you're even trying to argue about anymore. My comment was specifically addressing the idea that universities should be funding their IT efforts with researchers, which is in general a poor use of research dollars, but especially for a university that literally has no relevant research program or school. You're not even trying to respond to my actual criticism. You're engaging in pedantry and rambling about staph infections instead. > Your lack of imagination makes me hope you're not in charge of anything important. Your incoherent responses and abrasiveness make be fairly confident you are not.
- orbitingpluto 10y ago
  "You think the guys designing prosthetics should be administering SAP systems for UCSF?" Strawman your favourite argument? Of course I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that a medical academic institution shouldn't prevent possible avenues of medical research by outsourcing key implementations of health care to the lowest bidder. That includes janitorial, engineering, IT, ... You don't staff janitorial or IT with researchers, but you staff it with people who will be able to work with the researchers. Outsourced IT kills the possibility. Thanks for the janitorial strawman. Keep in mind that doing research with outsourced IT will likely result in the provider manipulating data to provide whatever they think is the desired result from the client. Any research about improving IT in medicine will have zero value. The reason why I said I hope you're not in charge of anything is because your statement quoted below offloads responsibility from those making decisions. It sounds like a strategy for deflecting responsibility and blaming others for your own lack of expertise: "I'm saying that if you start with the claim that "the administration cannot properly value IT", the logical conclusion is outsourcing."

dpark 10y ago

You think the guys designing prosthetics should be administering SAP systems for UCSF? They have the appropriate skills for this and it's a good use of their time? I'm not sure what you're even trying to argue about anymore. My comment was specifically addressing the idea that universities should be funding their IT efforts with researchers, which is in general a poor use of research dollars, but especially for a university that literally has no relevant research program or school. You're not even trying to respond to my actual criticism. You're engaging in pedantry and rambling about staph infections instead. > Your lack of imagination makes me hope you're not in charge of anything important. Your incoherent responses and abrasiveness make be fairly confident you are not.

orbitingpluto 10y ago
"You think the guys designing prosthetics should be administering SAP systems for UCSF?" Strawman your favourite argument? Of course I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that a medical academic institution shouldn't prevent possible avenues of medical research by outsourcing key implementations of health care to the lowest bidder. That includes janitorial, engineering, IT, ... You don't staff janitorial or IT with researchers, but you staff it with people who will be able to work with the researchers. Outsourced IT kills the possibility. Thanks for the janitorial strawman. Keep in mind that doing research with outsourced IT will likely result in the provider manipulating data to provide whatever they think is the desired result from the client. Any research about improving IT in medicine will have zero value. The reason why I said I hope you're not in charge of anything is because your statement quoted below offloads responsibility from those making decisions. It sounds like a strategy for deflecting responsibility and blaming others for your own lack of expertise: "I'm saying that if you start with the claim that "the administration cannot properly value IT", the logical conclusion is outsourcing."