I have blogged before about positive deviance. My colleague, Dr. Michael Edmond, comments here.
The truth is, I am not fully getting it.
This is by no means a criticism of the papers published on the topic, merely an observation.
By definition, positive deviance is a social and behavioral change process based on the premise that in most organizations and communities there are people or groups of people who solve problems better than colleagues with the exact same resources. For hospital infection prevention, the premise is that infection control issues (such as hand hygiene) can be best solved by individuals with new, creative and pragmatic solutions. These individuals are not necessarily top management or even hospital unit leaders. Positive deviants find answers to problems that others (the masses) fail to conquer.
So is this sort of problem solving really something new? Haven't there always been individuals who excel in creativity, administration and problem solving? Why is this now classified as a new phenomenon?
In my organization, I have seen some infection prevention efforts fail when hospital units craft unit specific responses to infection prevention rather than adopting a top down intervention.
So are these then negative deviants or simply inept?
Perhaps I am simple minded and fail to grasp the self-evident.
This is by no means a criticism of the papers published on the topic, merely an observation.
By definition, positive deviance is a social and behavioral change process based on the premise that in most organizations and communities there are people or groups of people who solve problems better than colleagues with the exact same resources. For hospital infection prevention, the premise is that infection control issues (such as hand hygiene) can be best solved by individuals with new, creative and pragmatic solutions. These individuals are not necessarily top management or even hospital unit leaders. Positive deviants find answers to problems that others (the masses) fail to conquer.
So is this sort of problem solving really something new? Haven't there always been individuals who excel in creativity, administration and problem solving? Why is this now classified as a new phenomenon?
In my organization, I have seen some infection prevention efforts fail when hospital units craft unit specific responses to infection prevention rather than adopting a top down intervention.
So are these then negative deviants or simply inept?
Perhaps I am simple minded and fail to grasp the self-evident.
