I have long been interested in measurement. Raised sewing my own clothes, knitting, quilting, and constructing with paper, I grew up appreciating the value of accurate and precise measurement. Indeed, we all rely on accurate and precise measurement everyday, and for the most part, the act is completely transparent to us. When we put fruit on the scale at the check out, when we scoop half a cup of sugar while baking, when we measure our height in our doctor's office. We all share a host of expectations about scales, and rulers, and measuring cups. As a rehabilitation specialist, I have quickly learned that the tools we use to measure patient progress hardly ever truly act as measures, even though we pretend to use them that way. Pain scales, activities of daily living rating scales, reports of symptom severity - these produce numeric values that we treat as if they shared the same properties as rulers – yet they are at best, ordered. This website explores how we can make better health care measures so that we can help make health care better.

I advocate that clinical assessments should look and operate like rulers, so they can used them that way: to measure a single dimension at a time, compare real patient differences, regardless of who is using the ruler or who they are measuring.

Disclaimer: This website represents my thoughts and ideas about contemporary approaches to measurement in the health sciences. They do not necessarily reflect the ideas of GW.