Zane Safrit

Debating healthcare reform: garbage in, garbage out

Instead of forthrightly dealing with the fundamental problems, discussion is dominated by rival factions struggling to enact or defeat President Barack Obama's agenda. The rhetoric on both sides is exaggerated and often deceptive. Those of us for whom the central issue is health—not politics—have been left in the lurch. - Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of Harvard Medical School in WSJ op-ed,

Garbage in, garbage out.

Talking about Doctors at My DocHub

I like this site, My DocHub. I like it for its goal of transparent ratings and reviews for doctors. I love their:

•  their video feed of health care news from around the world.
•  their blog: well-written, well-designed.
• forum: lots of conversations on lots of health topics.

I like the site's overall design, look and feel. 

I definitely like this:











What I'm not settled on is the anonymity of those rating their doctors. 

I understand it's a tradeoff between:

• allowing and encouraging more participants. The shy and reticent may be shy and reticent to share an unpleasant or negative ratings. And the fear of repurcussions is  valid.

• accountability and responsibility.  How does a doctor correct their mistakes, meaningfully and personally, if the person remains anonymous. And why, how, does a doctor's practice view anonymous ratings as meaningful.

The phrase, judged by a jury of your peers, rings in my head. Here it's judged by a jury of your customers...but who are anonymous customers? And are the judgments of anonymous customers, patients in this case, compromised any less than by judgments of anonymous peers?

Isn't anonymous just as self-defeating for us as individuals, consumers, community members in our interactions with corporations and each other as self-defeating for corporations and their policies with us?

I don't have an answer.

Personally, I favor full disclosure. If I'm tempted to leave an anonymous comment on a site...I don't. But, that's my personal standard.

And, here in this application with personal healthcare it may be premature to expect full disclosure.

These are questions that will get answered in the healthcare arena and its use of transparent social media with the leadership and initiative of groups like DocHub.

I love what they've started. And that these questions arise as I visit their site is a sign of how far they've carried this conversation in such a short time. They've carried the conversation to the important issues: our conversations together and with our doctors about our health.

That's a pretty high accomplishment for any brand.

Honesty Always Hits the Jackpot

A former work colleague reached out to me last week.

And, his connection request left me scratching my head. I couldn't have been more surprised.

I use the term colleague loosely. We worked at the same company. But we never spoke except once in a meeting. And around town we never spoke to each other.

It's understandable we never spoke much at the company.  He was smart. PhD smart. PhD in Physics smart. Working in IT-development doing cool things on the internet back in the early 90's smart. I'm an art major.  I was in customer service and sales support. Much of that time I rode a bike around town as my primary mode of transportation. Winter, summer, rain or snow. We lived in different universes.

Even if we did speak to each other, I'm not sure we could have understood what the other was saying.  Seriously. I'm willing to bet one of us would have been impatient, if not offended, within a few sentences. Even if we'd said hello, using only that one word, we'd have missed what th other was saying.

None of this made us bad guys, really. I understood then, sorta (when I wasn't offended...from insecurity), and now why he never spoke. 

But, that made his connection request seem even odder.

I thought about it for a few days. Told my wife. ( Her insight, as it often is, was prescient. Maybe he's just shy or distracted?) Still, I pondered it a few more days. And then I decided to...just be honest.

I replied. I thanked him for his request. I re-told some of his accomplishments I'd witnessed and their huge impact on the company. Then I asked why. Why do you want to connect as we never spoke then, nor on the rare occasion I see him now. I said I'm happy to move forward, but, I'm still perplexed.

And if the sun rose in the west, I'm not sure I'd be more amazed than when I read his reply. He thanked me. He was looking to reach out and connect and he'd hit the jackpot in my reply. He said he knew sometimes he came across like that. He was working to change that. And he'd make sure we spoke when we saw each other in the future.

Holy smoke. That response made my day. Honestly, it made my week.

There's no way I can put in words what I felt with his reply. It would have been easy for him to blow it off, not reply or worse...wonder who this bike-ridin' guy was to question him or anything he'd done. That would have been his right.

But he didn't. And not only that, he was honest and open in more ways than...I certainly expected.

His response was a jackpot for me. Huge jackpot.

He reads this blog. I hope he reads this post.

True confession: I'd deleted him and his emails when I saw no reply after a few days. I figured...oh well, at least I saved time to focus on those who really want a conversation. I told him that in my reply to his note. That's one of those prove-me-wrong delights I enjoy.

Funny. Funny in a great, encouraging, way.

Honesty. It always works. But its rewards are greatest with those who can reciprocate.  It's with them that you hit the jackpot directly. The others, well, being honest just keeps them from interfering and it does a  favor for them, too: it points them towards people where they can be honest and find their own jackpot.

I wasn't sure how to categorize this post. I created ones called TIMING and HONESTY.  I added Celebrating failure. I don't see this as a failure so much as a great learning experience.