File this in the cleaning up my queue category, but there’s a pretty good article in last weeks NEJM about how a doctor judges himself.  I’d submit that apart from baseball players, and call center customer service rep, most of us don’t get the regular metricized feedback that would help us improve.

This doc, Richard Baron, surveyed a small sample of his practice and discovered (and I’m sure that he’s not alone) that although he and his staff were doing OK in servicing patients, and keeping them clinically in good shape, he was not doing so well communicating to them about how to manage their disease. So he needs to import a good dose of information therapy.

But this is a start. The only company I’ve ever worked where there was serious consultation via survey with staff and customers was a survey firm.  And to be fair, whatever the results of the survey, they didn’t seem to really change the organization’s behavior too much. Perhaps I should be surveying my clients and my readers….but I think many more doctors should be surveying their patients.