In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;
early in the morning I make my appeal and watch for you. (Psalm 5:3)

I grow weary because of my groaning;
every night I drench my bed
and flood my couch with tears. (Psalm 6:6)

The company I work for is the leader in patient flow automation — improving patient care and hospital operations by making data more visible, smoothing out communication, and coordinating the efforts of employees in every area of the hospital.

We provide enormous amounts of data — dashboards to help you see in the moment whether you’re on track, standard reports in more than 90 flavors to help you drill down into the details and uncover roadblocks, and a custom reporting solution that will even email you the report automatically.

Our best clients have literally transformed their health systems by streamlining their patient flow, taking care of hundreds more patients every month in the same number of beds they have always had.

But, here’s the thing.

A few of our clients never look at the reports. They try to do their work without knowing what to expect. They make the same mistakes over and over again because they can’t see the pattern. They end up acting like every day is a crisis, when most days they will simply need to discharge some patients and admit some more, just like they do every day.

Think of the Daily Office as your dashboard, as your daily report.

“Early in the morning” and every evening,” as the Psalmist says, you can check in and see how you’re doing. Early in the morning you can remind yourself of the direction you want to take, and every evening you can take stock of where you strayed. In Morning Prayer you begin the day with the praise of God on your lips, and at Evening Prayer the words of confession bring the day to a close.

Using reports in your work, using the Daily Office, is not a magic bullet. You won’t necessarily change overnight, but you won’t change at all if you’re not paying attention. Continuous, if marginal, improvement is the order of the day.

For Guidance

Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings with your most gracious favor, and further us with your continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy Name, and finally, by your mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP 832)