E-medicine and e-work: the new international division of medical labour?

Abstract

Abstract The application of new Information Communications Technologies (ICT) to the reorganisation and international relocation of service related work is becoming increasingly evident. There has been a good deal of attention given to this process of relocation in the literature in relation to customer service and high technology service industries such as software production. Despite the increasing body of evidence that e-medicine sites are proliferating on the world wide web there seems to be little discussion of this in terms of the implications for medical labour. This paper argues that medical labour is far from impervious to the possibilities of relocation. It uses a case study of international relocation of work in the health sector to illustrate the argument.