Today was quality survey day at the clinic. It is the biannual survey of physicians and nurses that have patient contact. Unlike at Kaiser, the survey is passed by the physician immediately after the visit to be filled out on the spot. They are then collected in a folder in the examining room to be collected later.
Of course the survey is flawed for a number of reasons. Not only do the staff know the day and time of the survey, but they actively participate in the process. This skews the results as everyone can be on the "best behavior" for just that day and get great results. Problem children like myself may create results that are at best inaccurate and misleading. There is even the potential to do the" Vladimir Putin and Takeout" ballot stuffing. Nonetheless I do hope I am around to see the results as I have not had feedback in years and would like to know if I have become as senile as I seem.
The great problem here to do it in a more blinded fashion is that: 1. Few people have a mail box or home address. 2. Even fewer ever use the mail. 3. Almost no one has an Internet connection and email. Toss in a significant illiteracy rate and few phones and you have a kind of survey black hole. If one has mail it is with a P.O. Box and many people come into to town only once per week to check it. We have a number of PhD and MPH (Master of Public Health) people here who do this stuff for a living and know the the survey techniques are bogus but do them anyway to justify their salaries and give us something to talk about in blogs. I really do not mind the survey as long as after my patients vote on me I do not end up in the Iranian Parliament.
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