Five Star Superficiality

Society is driven by surveys. From on-line purchases, customer service experiences, entertainment, to travel opportunities, these days everything is seemingly compared on a five star rating system. Consumers’ attentions can be persuaded, swooned, and lulled to make transactions all based on these valuations.

We have become so conditioned to a five star rating system that it directly influences our thoughts and behaviors. After all, why settle for 1-3 stars when you could have 4-5 stars for anything given thing. Rating systems certainly have their place and should be used as one of the gauges for decision making and opinions but never the engine driver. 

Ratings are only as good as what is being measured and are restricted by those same measures as well. Unconsciously, we attribute five stars to mean the best and one star is the worst. But what does that really mean? 

With the following five star rating system of a rose, these constraints can be easily seen. If you were to rank the rose from 1 to 5 stars in each of the following criterion: hardiness, ease of growth, and susceptibility to disease, the rose would only get 1-2 stars in each of these categories. Averaged together, the rose, at best, would receive two stars. Arguably, the rose is one of the world’s most beloved flowers, and no one would find that star rating system acceptable only preposterous. In the case of the rose, we know it is not an accurate describer of what a rose really is say nothing for rating its exquisiteness and indefinable fragrance.

In much the same way, the five star rating system for nursing homes is like the above rose scenario. There are three measures (health inspections, quality measures, and staffing), however they do not adequately appraise the organizational health and heart inside a care community. Yes, they have their place and rate certain aspects of the community, and yet other more important factors are not even considered. 

For example, organizational leaders could be driving change and challenging the way it has always been, but that is not part of the star system rating. Leadership may have absolved the traditional hierarchical organizational chart and implemented an empowered approach. Yet again those categories are not part of the star system.  There is no measure for moving the residents from the unbending institutional structure to a day that they direct and live in well-being. The list could go on and on.

Often ratings, like depicted with the rose and the nursing home, miss the mark on what matters most. For the rose, that meant attributing nothing to its stellar beauty but only its thorny characteristics. For the nursing home, it meant reducing the organization to a narrow focus of metrics and data.

Rating systems are a force that can work against itself if not properly put in perspective of the larger picture. Using stated ratings as the sole source of information can lead to inaccurate and short sighted thinking. We need to know how to use the data that is rated through appropriate interpretation, and realize there is always a greater story beyond the measuring stick of five stars.