The Efficiency Trap
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 04:00PM When I first started my chiropractic practice, I had a goal of adjusting 1000 patients over the course of a week. There were other doctors in Hawaii who were hitting this mark and I aspired to be like them.
I have since crossed this goal off my list. Not because I achieved it. Not because I dejectedly deem it to be an impossible dream.
I no longer shoot for the 1000 PV/week milestone because I realize that to achieve this goal I would have to become extremely efficient. My chiropractic practice would need to become a model of efficiency.
Wait a minute. What's wrong with that?
Well, in a highly efficient chiropractic practice, patients need to flow in and out of the office like clockwork. Patients would need to hop on and off my adjusting table like parts on an assembly line. There's no time to chat. No time to ask questions. No time to consider new, original procedures to make healing more effective. In a sad way, patients almost cease to be people-- just spines to be worked on.
The problem with focusing on efficiency is that it very often diminishes a person's desire and capacity to focus on effectiveness.
When you are constantly thinking about how many possible patients you can cram into your practice's schedule book, it's easy to start to neglect the unique needs of each individual patient.
As each patient gets treated more and more the same way with streamlined policies and techniques with little variation among those adjusted, the efficient practice becomes more like a factory than a clinic of effective healing.