For the Patients

There’s a Derek Sivers quote about business in Anything You Want that I think applies well to healthcare. I’ve replaced “customer” with patient”:

Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your patients. Make every decision — even decisions about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone — according to what’s best for your patients.

One key here is that you can’t just consider what only best for your patients right now, but also what will be best for your patients in the long run. We can ask that question as individual doctors, as groups/practices/hospitals, as specialties like radiology, and as healthcare professionals as a whole.

You, your business, and your industry need to be healthy and strong enough to keep providing the best possible care into the indefinite future.

We can’t prioritize short-term thinking through dashboards, growth, and other easy measurables over second-order thinking.

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