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(c) 2010-2024 Jon L Gelman, All Rights Reserved.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Does Workers' Compensation Really Have a Place in the iEverything World?

I started my day watching the video of the launch of Apple's iWatch. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and his team never disappoints with the rollout of amazing new technology. Even the non-believers will be enthralled.

The implementation of Apple's technology is based upon widespread adoption. In the case of linking the iPhone and the iWatch to an iEverything platform they are relying upon the basic instinct for humans to survive and live healthier and longer.

Apple is making a massive move into medicine on a global basis. They are expanding internationally on all fronts including research projects with the world's top medical facilities and training institutions. It is awesome.

Apple is adopting to the changing world. It is helping to change the world simultaneously. The tech company is not stagnated by old technology or systems.

The nation's workers' compensation program is a century old. The system was a good fit for an old market. The system created in 1911 worked well in times that no longer exists today.

I can't get onto my computer without reading about the workers' compensation system being pounded by all factions and stakeholders. The elements and issues that created the nation's workers' compensation program for the most part no longer exist.

Robert Reich wrote this week that technological advancements have automated the workplace. Fewer people are required to do tasks and that number decreases daily. "New technologies aren’t just labor-replacing. They’re also knowledge-replacing."

Last week I had the opportunity to hear Thomas Friedman, Foreign Affairs Columnist of the NY Times, speak about how the world has changed only in the last couple of decades. He talked about what must be done today to meet the realities of the future.

Friedman reflected on Moore's Law,  named after the co-founder of Intel Corporation, Gordon E. Moore. Moore observed that the speed and power of microchips will double every 24 months.

"The really big thing that just happened" Thomas Friedman observed is that, "the Market, Mother Nature and Moore's Law, just went into hyper-acceleration." 

When you apply the observations of both Reich and Friedman to a century-old social remedial program operating as workers' compensation,  a basic question arises. Does the present workers' compensation system really have a place any longer in the iEverything world?