I came across a question, on LinkedIn, asking whether healthcare workers should be paid based on health outcomes.

(Incidentally, we have our first professional development lecture set next month, on the subject of creating/optimizing a LinkedIn profile, via the @SoMeDocs NETWORK!)

In theory, paying physicians based on health outcomes sounds fabulous.

But the human body is too complex for such assessment.

Healthcare workers aren’t making a T-shirt.

Or putting together a piece of furniture. It isn’t quantifiable in the same way (a T-shirt works if it looks as it should, if it fits, etc).

When you introduce measures of this kind (where we’re paid based on a number), healthcare workers will naturally begin to prioritize quantifiable data, rather than the human standing in front of them.

Doing it this way turns us into machines, and is one of the mitigating factors of the high burnout rate in our field.

It’s about the human interaction, as much as it is about the numbers. Medicine is a science as much as it is an art.