Goodhart’s legislation means that when a measure turns into a goal, it ceases to be an excellent measure. Once I first learn this I couldn’t assist however consider healthcare and the search for the proper affected person satisfaction rating.
The issue is that as quickly as we steer doctor habits and educate to the take a look at, affected person satisfaction scores cease being a legitimate measure. Primarily, the metric turns into a proxy for capability. Excessive affected person satisfaction scores extra seemingly imply that we’re good at getting excessive affected person satisfaction scores.
What’s worse is that after we obsess in regards to the measure we wind up with a hospital filled with docs who unusually lean ahead.
Richard Fisher in MIT Know-how Evaluate characterised this sort of considering as short-termism: To flee short-termism, we should reassess the targets by which we gauge success. Do they encourage longer-term considering, or do they prioritize solely present-day beneficial properties?
We want a greater measure of affected person satisfaction.
If you appreciated this submit on Goodhart’s legislation you may like our publication. You’ll get weekly stuff on well being, expertise and tradition. You may also like our Affected person Expertise Archive for posts on affected person satisfaction and expertise.
Barely modified picture by way of Alexander Sinn on Unsplash.
