ABSTRACT
CHARACTERISTICS OF WORK SYSTEMS IN HEALTH CARE
M omentary Situation
The economic dimension of the health care sector is becoming an enormously influential factor in industrialized countries all over the world. In Germany and the United States the health care sec tor represents more than 10% of the entire gross domestic product (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2003). The follow ing four elements characterize recent developments in health care:
1. A. steadily increasing cost pressure. For example, in Germany the overall costs for the largest single health care expense, that is, the patient treatment in hospitals, have increased by more than 35% between 1991 and 1999. This large increase in costs has occurred despite a systematic reduction of hospital beds and staff. Reasons for the increasing cost pressure include a continuously growing number of patients combined with growing costs per treated case. Both reasons result from great medical and technological progress and major demo graphic changes, including increasing number of elderly, multi-morbid, and
chronically ill patients (Arnold, Litsch, & Schellschmidt, 2002).
