Image generated by author using figlet. License: public domain.

Question: Why regardless of your ailment do hospitals check your vitals (height, weight, pulse rate, blood pressure etc)?
Answer: Because the doctor might need these vitals and his time is more valuable than the time cost of a useless measurement. This saves costs — possibly in lives.

Welcome to Costs Matter, a series that asks different questions all of which have the same answer: to better manage costs. The costs are frequently economic though not always. The series focuses narrowly on the impact of costs. It does not claim these costs are the sole cause. To read more in the series, visit https://medium.com/galileo-onwards/costs/home.

In the TV show, “Seinfeld”, the eponymous character asks and discusses this very question. If you haven’t watched it, you can see it in the YouTube clip shown below. In this post, we’ll analyze why hospitals apply this policy.

There are two cases in the way things work. Let’s call them SQ1 and SQ2 (SQ = status quo).

SQ1: The doctor uses this information for your treatment. In this case your time was well spent.
SQ2: The doctor never bothers to even look at this information. Your time and that of the attendant(s) who measured your vitals was wasted.

Suppose the hospital didn’t work this way. Suppose they just had the doctor see you as soon as he could. There are two possibilities here too. We’ll call them AS1 and AS2 (AS = alternative scenario).

AS1: The doctor needs this information for your treatment. You’re sent to get the measurements.
AS2: The doctor never bothers to even look at this information. Your time and that of the attendant(s) measured your vitals aren’t wasted.

Now that we have established our cases established, let’s analyze them.

When your vitals were taken but unused the following are wasted costs: ⑴ your time, ⑵ the attendants time, and ⑶ wear and tear to the equipment. Hospitals don’t care about your time, so we’ll ignore ⑴.

On the other hand, when your vitals were not taken but needed, the wasted costs are: ⑷ the doctor’s time.

The hospital’s costs are minimized when ⑷ trumps ⑵+⑶, which, we can see is the case. Even if the probability of a doctor needing your vitals is low, one in ten, say, the hospital still comes out ahead if the doctor makes more than 10x the salary of a few attendants. (I say a few attendants because hospitals have always have more attendants than doctors.)

Put differently then, hospitals measure vitals because they value the doctors’ time more. For what it’s worth, I think this is fair.