There is a reason that parents wait to buy their children the newest iPhone, or the most expensive toys when they are younger. The reason is they wouldn’t want their children to break those items that they have spent so much money on. This analogy is sort of like new coders and projects, and more… Continue Reading →

From the blog CS@Worcester – Computing Finn by computingfinn and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Dcanton Blog by dcantonblog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

After reading “Why Doctors Hate Their Computers” by Atul Gawande, I was intrigued on how technology was actually making lives of individuals harder; when the goal of technology moving forward is to actually lift the weight off your shoulders and make things more convenient. Another aspect that was interesting was why was it so universal that almost all doctors started to hate their job when they had to be in front of a computer screen for awhile longer? As a computer science student I could safely say I average about 6 – 8 hours a day in front of the computer and when going to work I am in front of a screen for a full 8 hours but that doesn’t make my life miserable; maybe it is something one has to get accustomed to.

As I was reading, I found that the system had many flaws, especially the fact that it made the doctors enter redundant data when it simply should know and automatically be filled in. Obviously as stated in the article this system was not meant for the doctors or health care professionals but instead for the patients. It was created so they could see what their diagnosis is, what doctors actually said, what medication to take, more information about what is going on, etc. Although this system is in its infancy stage and there are many flaws, I believe that in the future there will be much progress in the system and the way this system is implemented, the connection between doctor, patient, and technology will strengthen.

There are many things to walk away with after reading this article. The first would be our approach when it comes to creating technology and having it benefiting any parties involved without the cost of bringing down another. So when it comes to planning out our idea we must try our best to not sacrifice the possibility of creating a well rounded application; as easy as that sounds I know it is always difficult. There was not much I disagreed with because I was able to see both sides of the spectrum.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Life in the Field of Computer Science by iharrynguyen and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

This week, our class was asked to read the following article, “Why Doctors Hate Their Computers” by Atul Gawande, which discusses the adaptation of healthcare professionals transitioning to a more digitized system to perform care. When Epic, a highly popular electronic medical record software, started to become more prevalent in hospitals and other healthcare settings, the costs of deploying the system on such a widespread scale had to be considered, not only for patients and especially for the healthcare providers who had to learn how to properly use the system.

After reading the article, I thought about how much time my own healthcare providers spend documenting on their computers, because I honestly hadn’t really thought about it before. Most, if not all, of my providers do in fact take a decent amount of time before, during, and after my appointments to work on my medical record. So, it was really eye-opening to read about the various clinicians who take lots of time outside of their workday to learn and use the system, not only because of the number of patients whose information is stored, but also because of the amount of time it takes to become fully acclimated to the extremely versatile software. It must certainly become exhausting to lose more time outside of work, after already having obscenely long workweeks.

That being said, I think that the primary tension that caused the system to make the doctors’ lives harder is the sheer number of patients who need to see a physician, along with the amount of pressure to become proficient with the new system at the same time. Each healthcare provider already has an obligation to visit as many patients as possible. They barely have time as it is outside of each appointment for documentation. Adding another responsibility of being comfortable with the new electronic medical record software (which has a function for just about anything related to health documentation) is definitely a hefty task.

With all this in mind, I feel that the true customers of the system are both the patients and the clinicians. While Gregg Meyer from this article described the patients as the real customers (because the number of patients accessing their records far surpasses the number of providers maintaining the records), it is also imperative that the healthcare providers fully understand the system. While each patient can spend several minutes examining their record, each provider spends hours per day working with many different patients’ records. With this much time spent, I feel that it should be argued that in fact, the providers are the customers system.

I think that some of the lessons described from this article could really be applied to any organization that may be switching to a more digital setting. The cost of familiarizing everyone with the system, both in cost of time it takes and the financial burden of training, can become high. These should all be taken into consideration when digitizing a company.

My main concern with such high dependency on these electronic medical software lies in the risk of some sort of organizational shutdown, should the system fail at any time. Because there is always high traffic due to the massive demand, these sorts of risks should be kept in mind. This software is revolutionary to the development of quality healthcare, but ensuring that the organization as a whole can still be successful in the case of malfunctions is essential.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Hi, I'm Kat. by Kat Law and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

This blog is about the article “Why Doctors Hate Their Computers” by Atul Gawande, from the November 12, 2018 issue of The New Yorker. This article gives inside experience from doctor’s perspective about software system in the medical field. There are a lot of interesting point in this reading, its touch on point of view from the hospital admission, doctor and software designer. How each department want the software system to benefit them, while there is conflict between. In this reading, I understand where they are coming from and their difficulty adapting to the system. Most of the points in the article are from doctor’s perspective on software, and I am reading as the software developer. This is useful to understand from the customers. We as the developer, listen and understand from customers is crucial. We need to know how to make software useful and convenience, without too much hassle of using it.
The first point of the tensions caused the system to make doctors’ lives harder, the software release in large-scale at one time. Everyone in the hospital must attend hours of mandatory computer training. Most of attendant don’t want to be here, while they need their time to doing their actual job. Time is one of the important in the medical field, one doctor job to see and treat many patients. Rather meet patient face-to-face get personal, they are on computer checking the list. One system does not work for every doctor. Each doctor has their own way of working. System should be release and update slowly as developer work with the hospital/doctors.
The system design to benefit everyone, but I feel the real customer for the system is not just the doctors. The administration wants to keep track with all the work, the choices were more political than technical. The patient benefit from check list of safety hospital must do, but their records are not connecting between different system. They must answer same question every different visit. The doctors are the last people who are benefit, it seems while they are the operator, they have to follow the system. They must change their way of work to be beneficial to the system.
The lessons from the implementation of this system does not apply to only Electronic Medical Record systems. These lessons apply to all software development, how to find the balance of beneficial and drawback. The reading does show more interesting details that I didn’t think of. There are no big parts that I disagree of, there are lot of points from the doctor’s perspective. There is seem like two sides, I want there is mix between developers and users in make these systems. Less political and more of work together, time is important to doctor so make time use on computer similar to the amount time that they normally spend. Flexible software, we have AI smart enough to learn the way of individual doctor work. We have Google Assistant work for every phone why not work for each doctor. Look at the habit of individual doctor and build base on it. Doctor need to help developer to understand and find the solution that benefit both. The system should just an add-on to the existed work, the main idea is to support not to change.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Nhat's Blog by Nhat Truong Le and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

After reading “Why Doctors Hate their Computers” by the New Yorker my opinion on the topic has changed a bit. I’m sure everyone has gone to the doctors before and waited much longer than they were supposed to due to the doctor running late or some other issue. Leading many to believe that Doctors never run on time when you want them to, especially for your appointments. Now I can see why Doctors are late so often or overburden with the amount of data that they are required to enter in for each patient into a system that could be difficult for them to use on their own or are not the best at it. The whole piece was very interesting and enlightening honestly on the matter of new software for Doctors and the process of learning/switching over from a familiar one. One thing I found interesting was the hiring of scribes to start writing/doing most of the computer work for the doctors themselves to help “remedy” the inconvenience of doing so. The results from this were surprising as well with it actually being very effective but not solving the problem for the doctors themselves almost just beating around the bush. The tension between learning the new software and putting in all the information that they had previously been able to. What I mean by this is three nurses may write three different diagnoses for the same person in the system causing a mass confusion for the doctor. Or in other cases the system wouldn’t allow every detail that they wanted to add like they would do in a handwritten fashion. The lesson from the implementation of this system apply to almost any new system implementation throughout any workplace honestly. Speaking from a personal experience, at my Part Time Job at Lowes they introduced a new system called Sterling for the customer service desk. This system was to replace the old system of how internet orders were placed, tracked, and overall managed. Now I do not work customer service, I work over in the lawn and garden section but after hearing from coworkers and such I know how difficult it was for people to make the adjustment to sterling. The system was alien and overwhelming to all workers even those who knew and used it prior to our store. They all learned some tricks around it and finally learned to cope with it fine with occasional hiccups here and there. So a new software implementation issue isn’t just unique to medical care systems / work spaces. The real customers of the systems are those that have to use the system on a day to day basis, trying to get the most out of their own system even it means wrestling with it. Overall this article was very enjoyable to read while also shedding light onto new topics I had previously been unaware of.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Matt's Blog by mattyd99 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.