THE PATIENT IN THE HOSPITAL
Have you (or some of your relatives/friends) ever had the misfortune to need a hospital?
I hope you have not.
But if you did, you will relate to this story, the story of "the Patient in the Hospital."
Before we delve into the story, let's recap.
When working with TameFlow, we want to make sure you can relate to certain ideas.
Often we start by "telling a story," where the elements of the idea are exposed through the narrative.
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We already met one such story.
The Story of the Egg of Columbus, which prepared us to be open to ideas that are in no way self-evident from the outset, but that are plainly obvious in hindsight, once the solution is revealed to us.
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Many ideas of TameFlow are like that: defeating your common experience to appear outrageously impossible, only to be revealed as totally obvious - once you gain a new insight, a new perspective.
We made an outrageous - seemingly impossible - claim!
Will it turn out to be totally obvious, once we gain some new perspective?
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We want to explore how such a claim is indeed not only possible, but obvious.
But before we learn about such secrets, we need to prepare our mind with a new MENTAL MODEL.
A MENTAL MODEL illustrated by the Story of The Patient in The Hospital.
Let's see how it unfolds.
MEANING OF "PATIENT"
Let's start by reflecting on the etymology (i.e. the history) of the very word "patient."
As a noun, it comes from the Latin word, that means to "suffer."
Of course, a person treated for some medical condition is "suffering."
THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE
"Patient," as an adjective, means someone who "endures" suffering or "bears" a misfortune, without complaining.
That's were we get the notion of "being patient" meaning that you have to WAIT!
In fact, what typically happens when we go to a hospital?
Unless it is a case of grave emergency, what is the first thing you endure when you go to a hospital?
You have to WAIT!
Then a ward or nurse comes a long, and TOUCHES you.
Maybe not literally, but in the sense they are working on/with you.
Then they tell you to... WAIT!
Then you are brought to some doctor, maybe a General Practitioner.
He will literally TOUCH you.
And maybe sends you to do some exam, like X-Rays.
There you have to WAIT.
Then the examiner will TOUCH you.
Then you're sent back to the doctor.
And you have to WAIT.
Do you see the pattern?
We are experience alternations of WAIT TIME and TOUCH TIME.
See the picture.
Any activity starts with a red WAIT TIME, and is followed by a green TOUCH time.
Notably the very first segment is red; and the last is green.
It's the patient timeline!
This alternating of WAIT/TOUCH times is the first MENTAL MODEL we consider.
Do you agree that it represent the typical patient's experience in a hospital?
Have you experienced this yourself?
Yes?
Then you will be able to relate to the upcoming threads.
Besides, if you like working with stories and MENTAL MODELS like the one we just highlighted with the Story of the Patient in the hospital, you might enjoy my book: The Book of TameFlow!
You can find it on Leanpub, here:
leanpub.com/tameflow
I hope you've found this thread helpful.
To discuss further, join the TameFlow Community here: circle.tameflow.com
Follow me @tendon to make sure you don't miss the sequel threads!
Like/Retweet the first tweet below if you can:
Steve Tendon
@tendon
I help executives achieve superior financial, operational, organizational and human performance by adopting the power of Flow@Scale™.
