Part 5 of 5 in our Four Core Principles series. Click here to see the whole series together.
“I think what you have is a solution in search of a problem.”
(Many Business/Technical Consultants Regarding Many Things)
Some tools matched with some clients are “a solution in search of a problem.” This means that the tool may seem neat or interesting, but there’s no specific reason to use it. It doesn’t help you do anything better or fix any problems. Using it will simply add complexity to your life. When this is the case, I recommend ditching the tool. More complexity is probably not something you need.
My favorite example is using email to remind clients of appointments as a standard service. This can seem like a nice service that takes advantage of 21st century tech. Emailing clients, however, is fraught with potential security problems. Also, some clients will find it useful and others won’t. If you use it with clients who want it, and who collaborate on informed consent around it, it may add value to therapy — assuming it doesn’t enable dependence. For some clients, email reminders can create a genuine added value in alignment with the principles of good clinical work. If it seems to be adding something, I would say keep it up. If it doesn’t, I would consider dropping it.
Another example is keeping client records on your computer. Doing so opens you up to a lot of security concerns. For some clinicians, however, electronic record keeping helps enough to be worth the hassle of making sure everything is in line with ethical and practical principles. This may mean learning a lot about encryption and computer security and setting up a secure environment on your computer, or it may mean spending the cash on a software package that takes care of that for you. Either way, I suggest you determine whether electronic record keeping adds value to your practice before you invest in doing it.
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This is Step 1: Service Selection of the PCT Way.
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