What might patient safety have to do with the joy and spirit of caregiving?

With the advent of electronic health record implementation, never-ending administrative duties, and unrelenting changes, it's no surprise that practitioners often talk about losing the joy of caregiving. In fact, many patient safety and quality conferences have begun to focus on this theme. Practitioners often lament that medicine is becoming less of a "craft" and turning into a standardized methodology-sucking the joy out of caregiving and making the art of their practice obsolete. Of course, the other side argues that the need to minimize variation and practice pure, objective, evidence-based medicine should be the norm and not the exception.

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