Value Added

For a lot of physicians, “productivity” is kind of a dirty word. It’s not that they're lazy, or inefficient--it’s just that productivity, as defined by the systems they work for, doesn’t feel all that productive.

To be productive, one must actually produce something, and what clinicians want to produce isn’t always how their productivity is being measured. It’s an empty kind of productivity that produces something we don’t value. And often, we choose a definition of productivity because it’s easier to measure, or because it incentivises a certain behavior, without asking ourselves what we truly value.

So what do we want to produce? Money? Office visits and procedures? Better outcomes? Happy patients? Happy caregivers? We need to define value as clearly as we can, and build systems to produce that. Then productivity will start to have real meaning that we can all agree on, and hold each other accountable for. And maybe it won’t be a dirty word anymore.