Recommended by Dr LAU Chun Wing Arthur on 9 April 2009
Comment on an article written by Joseph M. Hall and M. Eric Johnson in Harvard Business Review, March 2009 issue
I came across this article in the Harvard Business Review and would like to share with you.
Guidelines and checklists may have minimized our errors or incidents, but why do we not seem to feel better patient satisfaction? Are we doing more but yet earning less respect instead?
This appears to be a common issue in many industry dealing with people. Is it true that "process standardization has been pushed too far"? The job nature of doctors and nurses actually belongs to the category that some form of art has to be put in. "Art is needed in changeable environments (for example, when raw materials aren’t uniform and therefore require a craftsperson’s adjustments) and when customers value distinctive or unique output (in other words, all customers don’t want the product or service to perform or be performed the same way)." For example, I believe, a virtuoso pianist rendition of a Chopin piece on a Steinway and Sons, though sometimes could have some human variations and blemish, will always sound better than a flawless MIDI recording played on a Yamaha synthesizer. A human performer will always be able to sync his emotion and encores in accord with the response of his/her audience.
Read this article. We may be able to gain some insight of how to adjust our management style to improve patient/relative satisfaction.