Resources for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

A Plague of Systems Stinkers

www.huffingtonpost.com

We all need to be systems thinkers. Many are, but not the bureaucrats and regulators in Washington and State capitals. You may call them systems Stinkers.

Systems Stinkers think in straight lines. They see a problem; reason their way to an answer without evidence that it will work; and implement their so-called solution. Then they are done, or so they think. Their straight-line thinking usually produces "fixes that fail," and we pay for their failures.

Systems stinkers do not follow-up on their decisions. They order, someone implements, we pay, and they walk away. They do not consider unintended outcomes. There is no feedback to them, certainly none with effect. If you or I make a bad decision, we get the feedback ("request for payment") and we have to pay the bill. Systems Stinkers do not. The original space shuttle cost more than 380% over budget. The cost of Medicare was 800% over what was planned. Who paid and is still paying?

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