I was tempted to ask British Einstein to give you the following announcement, but I decided it’s mine to make.
I screwed the pooch today. I got the overall rankings for Utilization totally backwards in the scorecard for today’s Quality Series post. That means I screwed up the running totals scorecard as well. I did it. It was me.
I am only human. I am also totally sleep deprived, having just gotten back into town after traveling with my wife and three children. I also have a full time job.
None of these are excuses; I offer them as explanations. I make a lot of charts for this site, and once in a while I am going to make a mistake. I did today. This offers an excellent opportunity for me to show you that I mean what I say: this is not a partisan blog, nor one with a hidden bias. I wasn’t trying to make the US health care system look good today any more than I am trying to make it look bad on another. I am trying to present data to you as they are. My incorrect assessment showed the US as pretty good in terms of utilization; it turns out the opposite is correct.
I’m happy to say that I provided you guys with enough underlying data and information that you were able to spot my error. I’m happy to say that I fixed the mistake as soon as it was pointed out to me. I’m happy to say that I take responsibility for it.
What would be worse is if I had asked you to take my word for it, or spoken with authority I did not deserve, and left you no way to know. That’s not what we do here. I strive to tell you not only what I think, but why I think it. That is so that you can spot the flaws in my thinking, if they exist, and help me – and everyone else – to change our minds.
So thank you to the readers and commenters who keep us honest. This blog is the better for them.
