Legal Research

"The Relationship Between Doctors' Hand-Washing Committees and Alternative Fees"

Posted By Patrick J. Lamb: "I just returned from a breakfast at which Stephen Dubner, one of the authors of Freakonomics and the sequel, Superfreakonomics, made some remarks.  He told the story about the work he and his co-author did studying the hand hygiene habits of doctors at a hospital.  Doctors self-reported washing their hands 71% of the time.  By studied observation, the true frequency was 9%.  Committees were formed, edicts were issue, all to no avail.  Keep in mind, this was an effort to convince the highest educated cohort in a hospital to do that which all of them acknowledged they needed to do.  The a carrot was used.  Doctors would be observed and each time they washed their hands, this observation group would give them a Starbucks gift card.  Still no real improvement.  Anyway, Dubner went on at length about the various steps the hospital took to try to get the doctors to do that which they know they should do.

I won't reveal what ultimately caused the doctors to change their behavior, but Dubner's conclusion is that changing human behavior is incredibly difficult.

What does this have to do with alternative fees?  Everything...

Continue reading this interesting post at Patrick's blog site:

Source: In Search of Perfect Client Service,  6 December 2009 

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on December 11, 2009 (boomark / email).