Until practically the end of the nineteenth century, the terms ‘efficiency’ and ‘effectiveness’ were considered almost as synonymous. The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘efficiency’: ‘Fitness or power to accomplish, or success in accomplishing, the purpose intended; adequate power, effectiveness, efficacy.’ In recent years, however, ‘efficiency’ has acquired a second meaning: the ratio between input and output. In the words of the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences:I avui que ha tornat el copagament a l'escena de la política catalana, em pregunto com és que no surt la paraula al document publicat de la CAREC?. Doncs perquè ara s'en diu preus públics i taxes. Convé parlar de cada cosa al seu moment i amb el terme just. I precisament ara convé insistir novament que no és el moment del copagament (rodolí). Ho serà l'endemà del dia que s'hagi pagat el dèficit fiscal, de 15-18 mil milions d'euros anuals.
Efficiency in the sense of a ratio between input and output, effort and results, expenditure and income, cost and the resulting pleasure, is a relatively recent term. In this specific sense it became current in engineering only during the latter half of the nineteenth century and in business and in economics only since the beginning of the twentieth.
Mentrestant ens cal reivindicar una vegada més l'ús acurat dels termes, tal com diu Sir Muir Gray:
“It’s just semantics,” someone said to me but “just semantics” are responsible for about 50% of wars, as the brilliant analysis of Robert S McNamara’s wars – the Fog of War- demonstrates and for 99% of confusion in modern healthcare.
PD. Bé, no sé si el qualificatiu d'anàlisi brillant és l'acurat. Però deixem-ho aquí. Must read: "Genomics and Drug Response" a NEJM. Detall dels biomarcadors acceptats per a cada fàrmac, fins avui. I no us perdeu al Lancet "Physicians as guardians of genetic knowledge".
Michel Cascella. Vase dei fiori
