Re: creating joined-up systems
Cleaning, oh cleaning, 40 plus years ago my then employer spent a small fortune investigating cleaning and 'wet scrubbing' in an effort to remove problems from technical areas. Recently a trip to an emergency room showed the floor in a hospital to be 'varnished' with the remains of past patients fluids. Clearly the mop and bucket regime was not doing what you might hope to control the situation. A cruise ship had tighter infection control protocols then many hospitals currently achieve. As for medical protocols, my wife is supposed to have three weeks of radiotherapy, one set up scan and then treatment. So far four visits have secured 3 'one time' set up scans but only two therapeutic treatments, very considerable pain and one pain only (torture session?) with a failure to treat at all. I suggest training is a major issue that needs parallel attention to ensure that the increasing amount of technology is correctly employed. That along with eliminating FAX machines, eliminating hand written prescriptions and instructions might be a wise move*. Hand written, poorly coded instructions take orders of magnitude more time to process than correctly prepared electronic instructions, yet some princely medical staff refuse to use the superior (to their manual time wasting ways) electronic systems. They are 'too busy' to save time for patients, back office staff and even themselves.
*It resulted in one female patient being given erectile dysfunction cream for an eye condition causing considerable pain and additional treatment needs, hence costs.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
