Goodhart’s law suggests that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. This concept is particularly relevant in healthcare and the pursuit of the perfect patient satisfaction score.
When physician behavior is influenced by these scores, they stop being a valid measure, serving as a mere proxy for ability. Essentially, high patient satisfaction scores may reflect our proficiency in achieving high scores rather than genuine patient satisfaction.
Furthermore, the obsession with these metrics can lead to a hospital full of doctors who are unnaturally focused on attaining high scores. This short-term thinking, as characterized by Richard Fisher in MIT Technology Review, can detract from the overall quality of care.
We need a better, more meaningful measure of patient satisfaction that doesn’t compromise the integrity of healthcare.
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Slightly modified image via Alexander Sinn on Unsplash.
