A Different Take on Healthcare Data: The Plaque above the Scoreboard
By Nicholas Dowd, Senior Consultant (HCAHPs and other Surveys), HealthStream
We Need to Focus on More Than "Winning" and "Losing" in Healthcare
There was a plaque affixed to the wall high above the scoreboard in my high school gym. As a teenager I didn’t really pay much attention to it. Though I walked past it nearly every day and played basketball in its shadow on Tuesday and Friday nights, I didn’t think about it. I really didn’t notice it. At sixteen, of course, I was convinced there were many more “important” things with which to be concerned.
Engraved on that plaque was a poem penned by Grantland Rice:
For when the One Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks-not that you won or lost-
But how you played the game.
Like people in every walk of life, we healthcare people are attuned to successes and failures – wins and losses. But, perhaps more so than people in other occupations, we are also traditionally very sensitive to how we do what we do – that is, in Rice’s view, how we play the game.
Data and Metrics are Only Part of the Healthcare Story
What positive impact did you make in someone’s quality of life? What did you say to an anxious family member that calmed them? What kind word did you use? What small touch did you give at just the right time? What empathetic nod signaled that you understood someone’s pain? What quiet little differences have each of us made along the way, the impact of which can never be fully measured or counted or reported to a “scorekeeper” in a cubicle thousands of miles away?
Little Victories are as Important as Big Wins in Healthcare
Whether a nurse, physician or any employee of a hospital or clinic, we are all conditioned to measure success by how well our patients fare. Positive outcomes are vital, of course. After all, we’ve been patients, too. We’ve had those times when we ourselves have wanted to get well, sometimes desperately. We’ve wanted to win our battles. Whether we are the caregiver or the patient, we want to beat whatever challenges us.
Big or small, there are many ways to win. But, some triumphs can’t be readily measured or programmed on a dashboard or quantified for reimbursement purposes. Of all people, healthcare people know it isn’t always about winning or losing in dramatic fashion. We well understand the need for little victories. We try to make them happen every day.
Let’s Not Let Numbers Make Us Forget That We are Caring for People
Regardless of how healthcare ultimately gets financed or how many laws are formulated, no matter how wins or losses are defined by those who make the rules, life and health can never be reduced to a number. The score on the scoreboard will take care of itself when we do the right things the right way.
As Grantland Rice might see it, when the One Great Scorer comes to write against our names, we will be known not by whether we won or lost – or got fairly reimbursed. We will be known by how we played the game.
HealthStream helps our customer hospitals assess, understand, and improve patient experiences. Learn more.