Why do we use carrots and sticks if humans are not horses?

It was 6PM and I was still at the clinic. My last patient, Mr. R, had left over an hour ago and as far as the rules go, I could be home by then, eating dinner and taking a shower. But as I perused Mr. R's medication list over and over, I couldn't get myself to leave. He was taking over 15 medications and the pill burden was overwhelming. Since he recently lost Visiting Nurse Services and had to fill the pillbox on his own, he was exhausted from taking medications. I thought of how all the puzzle games I used to play had prepared me for this day as I went through different combinations of medications to arrive at the smallest possible number of pill counts for Mr. R. I continued to think of his case on my drive home trying to figure out a way to get a better control of his raging diabetes.

As I sat down and stuck a fork into the piece of chicken that was my dinner, the clock read 730PM and I thought about why I didn't leave earlier. Why did I spend time trying to fix the life of a stranger instead of feeding myself? What motivates us as doctors to stay late and perform a thorough task instead of clocking out on time and leaving the fate of our patients to other forces in the health care system?

And this is a pivotal question, because as our nation tries to make sense of why health care cost is spiraling out of control, the new system will be rebuilt based on what motivates health care workers to do a good job of caring for patients.

Many fresh carrots on newly-minted sticks have already been instituted in various areas of the medical system as part of the new health care legislation in an attempt to motivate health professionals to do the right thing, including programs like Medicare's Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI). According to the legislation, PQRI asks physicians to report how the care they furnish aligns with evidence-based clinical guidelines for a variety of medical conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease (1). In 2010, physicians who successfully report these measures will receive a 2% bonus on charges received from Medicare. The bonus tapers down to 1% in 2011 and 0.5% from 2012-2014. However, starting in 2015, physicians who fail to report these measures will receive a penalty of 1.5 percent deduction from their Medicare revenue from that year, increasing to 2% penalty in 2016 and each subsequent year.

But before we march forward to the trial and error of this new measure designed to induce higher performance, it is important to step back and ask ourselves: what motivates us as human beings?

According to Daniel Pink's book Drive based on numerous researches replicated in various settings over time, humans are motivated by three intrinsic drives: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

In a book by Deci et al published in 1985 (2), multiple researches on school children randomized to autonomy-supporting versus controlling teachers conclude that autonomy-supporting environment correlates with more creativity as well as enhanced intrinsic motivation and self-esteem. The concept of autonomy is replicated in the real world today by a successful Australian software company called Atlassian (3). Inspired by FedEx's promise to deliver a package in 24 hours, Atlassian instituted "FedEx day," when, once in each quarter, software developers are allowed 24 hours to work on anything they want, enjoying full autonomy. Results are brilliant bug fixes and new innovative features that otherwise would not be explored as successfully.

Another landmark article in 1959 (4) by Robert White, a professor emeritus in clinical psychology at Harvard University, proposed that the inherent satisfaction in exercising and extending one's capabilities is a strong motivator. It later inspired numerous experiments on mastery motivation which show multiple positive effects on performance, from leading test subjects to spend more of their free time on tasks (5) to increasing cognitive development in children (6). The 21st century example of these validated experiments can be found on Youtube, where there are millions of videos on the how-to of everything, from using make-up to writing computer programs, made by folks who enjoy the subjects in their free time, free of charge.

An interesting study by Adam Grant at Wharton demonstrates the power of purpose as a motivator (7). The study shows that employees working in a call center at a university fundraising organization who were given stories of how the money they raised affected the lives of beneficiaries earned more than twice the amount of donation compared to before the intervention. Volunteers exemplify the power of purpose in the real world, where people from all walks of life are driven, not by the extrinsic motivation of money, but by the intrinsic motivation of being part of a cause.

Interestingly, within decades of social studies research on motivation, the most surprising finding of all is that monetary rewards actually lead to poorer performance for cognitive tasks. The pervasive belief that higher monetary rewards lead to higher performance only applies to straight-forward, mechanical tasks – as soon as the job requires even the least amount of rudimentary cognition, monetary rewards produce negative effects on performance. This finding has been shown in works by numerous researchers, including Dan Ariely (a professor of behavioral economics at MIT)(8) and Dr. Bernd Irlenbusch (a lecturer at the London School of Economics) (9).

Despite the repeatedly validated science of intrinsic motivations, managers and organizations continue to use money to motivate workers for the more and more complicated cognitive tasks of the 21st century, the Medicare's Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) included. The monetary penalties of PQRI will narrow physicians’ minds onto the goal of mechanically completing reports, eliminate autonomy and distract away from mastery and purpose. It sends the message that physicians should do a good job, not because our work has a higher purpose of keeping other human beings healthy, but because we will earn more money for it. In a way, it views physicians as rudimentary horses easily lured by rudimentary carrots, when in reality I would like to believe that physicians are human beings driven by the ability to direct our own fate, the desire to be good at what we do, and the heart to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

On my drive home after another hard day's work, listening to the repeating lyrics of the wise singers of "The Lox," I reflected back on our motivation as physicians as the radio crooned, "It's the key to life. Money, Power and Respect." Autonomy is power, and mastery brings respect, but the Lox was wrong about the last key to life. In the end, life is never about money - it is all about purpose.

(1) http://www.acponline.org/advocacy/where_we_stand/access/int_prac_guide.pdf
(2) Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior By Edward L. Deci, Richard M. Ryan
(3) http://www.atlassian.com/about/Atlassian_Media_Kit.pdf
(4) R. White. Motivation Reconsidered: The Concept of Competence. Psychological Review. Vol. 66, No.5, 1959.
(5) S. Harter. Developmental Differences in the Manifestation of Mastery Motivation on Problem-solving Tasks. Child Development. Vol. 46, No. 2 (Jun., 1975) pp. 370-378.
(6) K. Jennings et al. Exploratory Play as an Index of Mastery Motivation: Relationships to Persistence, Cognitive Functioning, and Environmental Measures. Developmental Psychology. Vol. 10, No. 4, 386-394
(7)http://www.management.wharton.upenn.edu/grant/Grant_JAP2008b_TaskSignificance.pdf
(8) D. Ariely, U. Gneezy, G. Lowenstein, &N. Mazar, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Working Paper No. 05-11, July 2005; NY Times, 20 Nov. 08
(9)http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2009/06/performancepay.aspx