Correspondence: Thomas A. Coss, AppointYou, 46 Shea Ridge, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688, USA. E-mail: tom@tomcoss.com

¹is the VP of Business Development for AppointYou Inc. He has over 15 years experience in Clinical Information Systems, Senior Marketing and Business Operations roles in the medical device industry.

Received 7 July 2009; Revised 7 July 2009.

Abstract

Health-care costs consume an increasing portion of any modern society's resources, and controlling those costs is a major issue. Although health care is complex and surrounded by deep-rooted traditions, it is not immune to a basic analysis of inputs of capital investment, labour and their effects upon outputs. This article compares capital investment in health care to general manufacturing over a period from 1950 to 2006 and the effect that has had on efficiency. Whereas post World War II, general manufacturing has seen dramatic investments in capital along with a corresponding decline in labour, the same has not been seen in health-care. Capital investment in health-care increased significantly from 2000 to 2006. However, it remains far below that of general manufacturing and has had no impact on the demand for labour. Indeed, the future demands for skilled health-care labour will dramatically outpace the labour supply and is expected to increase further through 2025 and beyond. This gap between the supply of labour and the demands of servicing an aging population presents an opportunity to focus marketing efforts upon those aspects of innovation that can address a growing need for increased labour efficiency in health care.