So...I have been visiting my family in Arizona, and my sister works at a hospital. They are very interested in patient satisfaction. Their patient rankings are from 1-10, and the hospital decided that their results need to be either 9 or 10. So they started a big campaign, with brochures and pins and all, that say:
8=0
Apparently, that means penis in textspeak. They lost a lot of money and had to do away with the campaign.
Dick jokes aside, what is the (mathematically nonsensical) "8 = 0" (i.e., eight equals zero) supposed to mean? I assume something like "if you get 8 or less then you might as well have gotten a zero". Pff!
Originally posted by zmježd: Dick jokes aside, what is the (mathematically nonsensical) "8 = 0" (i.e., eight equals zero) supposed to mean? I assume something like "if you get 8 or less then you might as well have gotten a zero". Pff!
I think that's exactly what they are trying to imply. There's a lot of it about.
The college that I worked at before I came to China is, like all other UK colleges, subject to periodic inspections. The college receives a grade. They are numerical grades but one of them - the lowest that is generally considered acceptable - means "satisfactory".
Before the last inspection the college principle, in an all college meeting told us that "satisfactory is not satisfactory, good is not satisfactory... only outstanding is satisfactory".
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
Reminds me of the argument I had at a fast-food emporium over whether the "medium" was a "small", which I had asked for. The server insisted they only had "medium, large, and extra-large." Nothing could convince her that by the process of elimination, a "medium" had to be a "small." Even the manager, who butted in, denied the existsnce of "small."
Several members know I work for Ofsted, the body that inspects Bob's former college (among other settings). We've long been dissatisfied with the "satisfied" grade (as it were) and by coincidence have just announced its scrapping for school inspections. See this press release. Although I don't know of plans to extend the change to other settings like colleges it seems likely to me that they will follow in time, in the interests of uniformity, if nothing else.
By the way, I do think that the hospital is setting its sights rather too high in only wanting a 9 or 10 ranking. Certainly, when I'm filling in similar surveys, I'd pretty well never give a 9 or 10 for anything; 8 would be the maximum unless there were some extraordinary reason. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that, and of course there is always the sort of person who gives a low mark out of sheer cussedness. 7=0 might be better (and avoids the unfortunate implications).This message has been edited. Last edited by: arnie,
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I agree with you, arnie, about setting their sights too high. It just happened that as I was at my sister's, our father received his HCAHPS Survey for hospital patients. My dad had been hospitalized about 3 weeks ago. Well, you are right, arnie, he gave almost no 9s or 10s, and it was for the same hospital system.
