Beautiful Oliver, you are a master at this and we can all learn a lot from you.
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Oliver Frank Sent: Sunday, 16 July 2006 12:03 AM To: Ian Cheong Cc: General Practice Computing Group Talk Subject: Re: [GPCG_TALK] [Fwd: Re: FW: Names and roles of GPs involved inadvising NEHTA] Ian Cheong wrote: >>> At 9:02 pm +0930 11/7/06, Oliver Frank wrote: >>>> Dear colleagues, >>>> I asked NEHTA to tell me the names of the GPs involved in advising >>>> NEHTA. >>>> >>>> Please see my message below, and below it a small part of the reply >>>> from NEHTA, with my reply to Gabrielle Lloyde's reply. > > A lone voice in the wilderness has little chance against a large > bureaucracy. A co-ordinated attempt by the professional bodies would > have more impact, but we all know how good they are at > co-operating....hence the support they give to a national voice on GP > informatics. That is an interesting response. I believe that the days of lone voices in wildernesses are over. They are over because the tremendous power of improved communication via the Internet has blown away the previous ability of organisations and bureaucracies (of any size, large or small) to ignore the voices of those who feel that there is a problem with what the organisation is doing or not doing. I remember when I was a medical student and a young doctor the frustration of knowing that if I wrote to a medical or other organisation to with a question, suggestion, proposal or complaint, I had to depend entirely on the decisions of those who were running those organisations about whether they took any action or even responded to my letters. I say letters, because that was all that we had in those days, apart from attending any meetings that may be held. There was no easy way to inform any colleagues of my concerns or to seek their views and support in any campaigns for improvements to existing systems or ways of doing things. If organisations and bureaucracies didn't like whatever was being suggested to them, or judged the issue as not worthwhile, they could just ignore the correspondence and nobody would be any the wiser. The status quo could be maintained and life for those in power could continue peacefully undisturbed. Now hundreds or thousands of colleagues can know immediately what I am concerned about, and can easily and swiftly let me and each other know their views and opinions about the issue. I no longer feel that I am thinking or acting alone, but that I am part of a large group of intelligent, skilled, thoughtful, creative and active colleagues who have influence and many contacts. If an organisation or bureaucracy to whom I have written fails to reply to my concerns or to respond in any meaningful and considered way, many colleagues (and sometiems the medical press as well) will hear about it very quickly and will know that this organisation or bureaucracy has a problem. Organisations that are functioning reasonably effectively ensure that they reply politely, promptly and thoughtfully to all messages that they receive. Everybody on this list now knows that I have written to the Minister and to the RACGP, AMA and ADGP about NEHTA's strange and unacceptable behaviour, and will judge those organisations by their responses to my message. Others on the list may be inspired by this also to express their feelings to the Minister: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (don't forget to politely address your message to him as: Hon. Tony Abbott Minister for Health and Ageing House of Representatives Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600) and to whichever organisations they wish about what NEHTA is doing. A message from one GP can be dismissed as a message from a crank. It is less likely to be dismissed if is respectful, considered and makes a reasonable and reasoned request or argument and doesn't abuse people or say just "Somebody orta do sumpin". Receiving messages from ten GPs in different States all expressing similar concerns is a rare event for any organisation and for the Minister, and starts alarm bells ringing. I often prefer to make my initial approach to organisations and bureaucracies as a "lone voice". One reason is that it is quicker and easier to do so than to try to organise a group of people to agree on a message to be sent. Another reason is that before getting heavy with any organisation, I believe that it is important to actually just ask in a quiet polite way for the information or response that one wants, because sometimes one just gets the information or a reasonable response quickly and efficiently and the issue has been resolved. There are many times that I have seen messages on this and other lists from colleagues who are concerned about something and use roundabout methods to try to get the answers they are seeking, rather than just to ask directly. For example, if it's a question about how to bill an item under Medicare, I always recommend writing directly to Medicare with the question rather than asking for advice from colleagues, the AMA, Divisions or anybody else. In the case of questions to government authorities like Medicare, it is especially important to ask those authorities because by definition their answer (whether we like the answer or not) is and must be legally correct. Another reason for writing as a "lone voice" initially is to test the organisation's responsiveness, assess its degree of function or dysfunction and to gauge whether the organisation hopes that one will just quietly go away if one is brushed off. I like the allegedly true story of the little old lady who went to a bank and told the teller that she was hoping to get some investment advice. She was allowed to wait for quite some time. When the manager eventually decided to see her, he found that she had won many millions of dollars in a lottery and that his disregard had very nearly caused her to leave in search of a bank that would talk to her. A similar thing that happened to me is that there used to be an old hobo at our local shopping centre who we would sometimes see fossicking around in the bushes with a broom. When I hadn't seen him around for a while and asked what had become of him, I was told that he had died. This mattered to the shopkeepers because he was not a tramp but the owner of that shopping centre. Did you see this report? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4175143.stm "Prague's mayor has had the chance to see for himself whether the many accounts of city taxi drivers ripping off unsuspecting tourists are true. Posing as an Italian visitor, in a fake moustache and sunglasses, Pavel Bem hailed a taxi for a short ride - and was promptly overcharged by some 500%. Mr Bem said he was shocked by the extent of the problem and has vowed to step up controls on taxi drivers." It is how we behave to the unknown stranger that really shows what kind of person we are and whether we usually fulfill our obligations and do the right thing. I agree with you that "a co-ordinated attempt by the professional bodies would have more impact" and that is why I often ask my professional organisations for their support, which I find they generally give and which I am sure has a useful effect even if the organisations don't co-operate or co-ordinate their support. In the same way as hearing the same unsolicited message from increasing numbers of individual GPs impacts in a non-linear and perhaps geometric way on bureaucrats and politicians, I believe that this also applies to hearing the same message from increasing numbers of usually fiercely independent medical organisations. I have also learned over the years that the results of writing to organisations and bureaucracies can take years to be apparent and that the effects can be subtle and easy to miss. For example, have you noticed any improvement lately in the communication from our psychiatrist colleagues about your patients? I am not talking about the compulsory letter that they must send about patients they have seen on an item 291, but about their communication about routinely-referred patients. I have noticed an improvement. If you want to know why I think that this has occurred, I can tell you. So, in summary, I believe that we are no longer lone voices in the wilderness, and that all organisations and bureaucracies now need to be very careful in how they respond to all messages. The world is now much more likely than ever before to hear about strange and bad behaviour and about failure to fulfill one's obligations. -- Oliver Frank, general practitioner 255 North East Road, Hampstead Gardens, South Australia 5086 Phone 08 8261 1355 Fax 08 8266 5149 Mobile 0407 181 683 _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
