FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE ON VANITY METRICS

Summary from the TLDR Design newsletter

Florence Nightingale entered nursing as the Crimean War exposed the British Army's failing medical system, but she soon realized the deeper problem was an information crisis: hospitals produced records that guided no decisions. She made institutional responsibility impossible to ignore by restructuring the data around clear goals and identifying patterns of preventable deaths. Her true legacy is her method: start with decisions, define signals, then gather data to turn information into real accountability.