What if we’ve been measuring the wrong kind of “best”?
If I asked you what is the best movie that you’ve ever seen, you might have a list of star-studded, big cinematic responses that won all the oscars for cinemetography, lighting, and costume design.
But if I asked you what your favorite movie is, you’re responses would be quite different. You wouldn’t speak to me of accolades, you might not even tell me the name of the movie in response, but hit me with a …
“You talking to me?”
“I’ll be back.”
“There’s no place like home.”
or even an “I see dead people.”
We don’t love these films because they are the most critically perfect things ever made.
We love them because they stick.
Because they give us something we return to. And when you look closer at what people call their “favorite movies,” it’s rarely the most award-winning or technically flawless films in history. It’s often something more familiar, more lived-in, more human.
Like Coming to America—dignity wrapped in humor and identity.
Or Mrs. Doubtfire—messy, funny, tender.
Or A Knight’s Tale—joyful, improbable, unforgettable.
Or The Best Man—friendship, history, recognition, and truth we don’t always say out loud.
Films like Schindler’s List, while powerful and important, are rarely anyone’s favorite movie to snuggle up to in cozy socks on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
The goal isn’t a 10/10. The goal is a perfect 7/7.
A 10/10 measures excellence. A 7/7 measures delight. And people always come back for delight. I know there are major plot holes, and even errors in my favorite movies, but I can easily overlook them when they shine where I need them to. It’s not about lowering expectations, it is about aligning for delight.
We don’t remember our favorite movies because they were perfect. We remember them because they connected with us.
The same may be true of healthcare. And that distinction matters because it reveals something that we’ve quietly misunderstood in healthcare about systems, performance, and even care itself.
Patients don’t return because every process was optimized. They return because someone saw them, heard them, and treated them as human beings.
Somewhere along the way, healthcare operations started optimizing for “excellence” as the highest possible goal.
We built systems around:
- efficiency
- performance
- outcomes
- benchmarks
- perfection
And in doing so, we began to assume that if we are doing the “best”, offering “the best” care, working in “the best” institutions, using “the best” technology that we would automatically feel our best while doing it. But that has certainly not been the case.
Not for patients.
Not for caregivers.
Not for humans.
Because patients are not optimized beings, and neither are physicians, nurses, techs, or caregivers.
No one inside a healthcare system is operating at maximum capacity, maximum clarity, maximum emotional bandwidth, all the time.
And yet, we built systems that behave as if they should. … As if we all should be operating at optimal levels to infinity and beyond.
In hindsight, the result is predictable: provider burnout, emotional distance, and a quiet erosion of humanity inside places meant for healing.
But if, instead of pushing towards perfection and optimization, we look at what people actually return to and what they actually enjoy, what they remember, recommend, and trust, we’ll find real value.
It’s experience.
It’s whether they felt seen.
Whether they felt safe.
Whether, even in illness or uncertainty, human connection was present in the interaction.
That is where the real pattern shows up:
Joy is what brings people back.
Even in places that are not naturally joyful.
Even in sickness. Even in need. Even in uncertainty.
Joy does not erase difficulty, it coexists with it. But joy can convert an experience, making it more memorable, more meaningful, and more dignifying.
So maybe the goal was never perfection.
Maybe the goal was never even “excellence” as we’ve defined it.
Maybe the goal was something quieter, and far more demanding:
delight, joy, and connection that people actually want to return to
Because when people return, something deeper is working.
Trust is intact.
Experience is meaningful.
Care is felt, not just delivered.
And ironically, systems that reliably create that kind of experience tend to become excellent along the way. We don’t need systems optimized for excellence at the expense of people. Excellent, without the exhaustion, if we dare only imagine systems that prioritize joy and connection rather than an ever-elusive optimization.
We need systems designed for joy because joy is what makes excellence sustainable, repeatable, and human.
Geoffrey Silvera, PhD MHA 