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Podcast Episode

Healthcare's Obsession with Metrics, and Why it keeps Backfiring

Cut & Tell··5 October 2026·33 min

About this episode

What happens when a well-intentioned healthcare metric gets turned into a target? Nothing good — and Liz has the receipts. Before medical school, she spent two and a half years as study director for a major National Academies report on healthcare measurement. Then she went to residency, and everything she believed fell apart. This episode walks through the VA wait-time scandal, MIPS, and the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program — three cautionary tales about what happens when you attach incentives to healthcare data, and why Goodhart's Law keeps winning.📚 Referenced: Vital Signs: Core Metrics for Health and Healthcare Progress (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine)Host: Liz Malphrus, MDConnect with Liz: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/members/liz-malphrus-mdIG: @dr.malphrusProduced By: The Hippocratic CollectiveSubscribe to @hippocraticcollective on Youtube for all of the other shows and content the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.