Tech-Led Health Care Boom?

There is always gloom for improvement.

Optimist's Maxim

January 30. 2012 – In health care and elsewhere, these are days of gloom, even doom. Costs are high, the future is uncertain, the SGR may cut doctor fees by 27.4%, physician shortages loom, reform may be unconstitutional. For the nation as a whole, the national deficit will soon exceed $16 trillion, more than the GDP, and the economy grew an anemic 1.7% in 2011. The bloom is off the U.S. rose.

In the face of all of this, Mark P. Mills, founder of the Digital Power Group, and Julio M. Ottino, dean of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern, say in today's Wall Stree Journal, "The Tech-Led Boom," that the U.S. is on the cusp of an unprecedented technologically-led economic boom.

These two high-tech prophets, who seem oblivious of health care gloom, predict three “three grand high tech transformations” are upon us and are centered in America - big data, smart manufacturing, and the wireless revolution.

• Big Data - Virtually free computer processing power and data shortage make this transformation inevitable. The I-phone, they note, has computing power that shames IBM mainframes, the Internet is ascending into the “cloud,” and limitless data distribution with metadata analyses assures a medical revolution in outcomes, say they.

• Smart manufacturing - Automation and information systems, they assert, will streamline supply-chain management, and in the process, will optimize product features, and will radically improve quality and reduce waste. Computer design and engineering will create new devices and products.

• Wireless revolution – Soon most humans on the planet will be connected wirelessly – everywhere, everyone, all the time. This wirelessness will fuel economic growth in our youthful, dynamic, diverse culture. America, the authors claim, has “incontrovertibly powerful features “ – open mindedness, risk-taking, hard work, playfulness, anti-establishmentarism, a penchant for critical thinking, and more than half of the world’s top universities.

Given the proper political leadership, liquid financial markets, sensible tax and immigration policies, and balanced regulations , America will innovate and it will boom, for we are an exceptionally gifted and blessed nation.

Mills and Ottino conclude:

“America’s success isn’t foreordained. But technological innovations circa 2012 are profound. They will engender sweeping changes in our society and our economy. All the forces are in place. It’s just a matter of when.”

I pray they are right. There is gloom for improvement in health care and elsewhere.

Tweet: Three high tech forces and U.S. strengths– big data, smart manufacturing, and wireless technologies – forecast a bright America future.