The problem with … using stories as a source of evidence and learning

This commentary is a response to the growing trend in health care to use stories as evidence for amending care practices and behaviours. It points to a pervasive misunderstanding of the role of stories in the patient safety and quality improvement literature; namely, that stories can be treated as ‘information’. Doing so misses the significance of the socio-cultural dynamics that are the foundation of story-telling and story-sharing. The Commentary points out that story dynamics are unique for negotiating complexity and situations that do not afford simple, categorical, elegant answers. It reminds us that the story’s cardinal value is moving us rather than informing us. Reducing the story to suit the transactional, technical and informational demands of ‘past-conforming systems’ means sacrificing its potential for behavioural-psychological novelty and lived transformation.