When you come to a fork in the road, take it.  – Yogi Berra

   Everyone has always loved the way Yogi Berra, the legendary former catcher for the New York Yankees, expressed himself. In the course of mangling every rule of grammar and sensibility, Berra has had a remarkable gift for making sense.
   We all need to shake ourselves out of our paralysis, our frequent over-weighing of choices, and just move ahead. The question is not so much whether we will take the correct fork, but whether we can make the best of whatever choice we make.
   For healthcare users, the American government, long paralyzed over how to gauge patient satisfaction, has finally made a decision…

   Naturally, since it’s a government program, their must be an acronym. HCAHPS refers to the new program through which Medicare seeks to compel hospitals to do what they should have figured out how to do on their own – improve patient satisfaction.

   One of the heartbreaking features of loving care work is that so many thousands of healthcare leaders have refused to practice what they preach in their mission statements. After years of mission fraud – hospitals telling the public they are focused on caring and then abusing patients – the government has finally stepped in to help patients force hospitals to improve.
   Now, of course, hospitals are scrambling to implement "customer service" programs. Many of these programs are cynical attempts to force nurses to act like McDonald’s clerks, spouting happy smiles and pat phrases. And most of these programs fail to address what’s really needed.
   Patients with cancer don’t want customer service. Women seeking help in delivering their babies are not interested in canned, happy talk. People with heart disease don’t come to the hospital because of valet parking (although it’s a nice service.)
   Patients want Loving Service. And loving service means the right balance of quality care and compassion.
   Hospitals and charities that are wise enough to ground their services in Radical Loving Care have nothing to fear from government programs or public opinion. American healthcare stands at a fork int he road – and they need to take it!

-Erie Chapman