Good day my fellow readers. Today I will be writing a retrospective on my first Sprint. For this Sprint, we were tasked with mainly setup tasks from our Product Manager. The first task we as a group decided to conquer was the simple task of reviewing the README for the AMPATH software we would be editing. It appears that, from the last time our Product Manager worked with AMPATH, there was a contributing section that was removed in the current iteration. The next task tackled was to create a Github organization, fork the ng2-amrs software to the organization, and clone the software our machines. We then needed to ensure that npm, Insomnia, and a Typescript compatible IDE were all installed on our machines. I believe that we will need to install Gradle as well for some of the testing packages but, due to the pains that come with installing Gradle, as a group we decided that we can put off installing Gradle until it is determined that Gradle is actually needed. With all that situated, we then installed and played around in OpenMRS, a demo of an EMR, or electronic medical record system. The point of this was to gain a feel for an EMR first hand and it was neat to play around with one. The next task was to actually get ng2-amrs running on our units. This was the troublesome part of this sprint. During this part of the Sprint, I got sick and regrettably, did little towards getting it running on my unit at first. During that time, however, others in both my group and the other AMPATH groups did solve many of the issues that would crop up. This created a wealth of troubleshooting resources and made it much easier for everyone to get their ng2-amrs software working. At the end of the Sprint, our group did have a couple tasks left that we did not accomplish and had to push to our next Sprint. These tasks were to install both Karma and Protractor and learn more about both of them. They are both testing software that we will eventually be used for testing our changes to the AMPATH ng2-amrs software. We also pushed having everyone up and running with ng2-amrs due to some members, including myself still having issues getting it running. Thankfully, two members of our group have the software fully up and running.
This Sprint has forced me to dive back into some work from a previous class to remember how to work with npm and Insomnia. While I did not need Insomnia, in particular, this sprint, it was collateral learning. I also got a chance to learn about electronic medicals records as well and get a, “peek behind the curtain” as it were. We not only had to mess around with the OpenMRS software, but we also had to listen to an article called, “Why Doctors hate Their Computers”. This article, in summary, told the story of doctors struggling with their new EMR software and investigating the cause of this hatred. In the end, I came to the conclusion that the cause of the pain of doctors was that the EMR software was directed to the patient as the customer, rather than the doctors who actually use the software. This did put a thought into my mind that while working on the AMPATH software I should not only keep the doctors in mind but keep the patients in mind as well.
That is what happened, and what I learned on my first of many sprints to come. See you next time readers!
From the blog CS@Worcester – Computer Science Discovery at WSU by mesitecsblog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.