Simple Questions

(from a software career)

A talk by Matthew Gatland / @mgatland …

How many letters in the alphabet?

How many days in a year?

How many hours in a day?

Matthew Gatland's Life Story

  • High School
  • University
  • Orion Health
  • Self-employed

Patient Record

Name
Address
What hospital bed you're in
X-ray photos
Allergies

Who uses it?

Small hospitals, like Christchurch - 1000s of records

Large hospitals, like Lahey Clinic (USA) - 1,000,000s of records

A typical morning on Support

Trouble at Lahey

  • 1:50 AM
  • 2:35 AM
  • 2:55 AM
  • 2:10 AM

    ERROR: OUT OF ORDER

  • 2:40 AM

    ERROR: OUT OF ORDER

  • 3:10 AM

    • How many hours in a day?

    This morning

    1 AM

    2 AM

    3 AM

    4 AM
    …

    Some other morning

    1 AM

    2 AM

    2 AM

    3 AM
    …

    The story at Lahey

    1:50 AM
    2:35 AM
    2:55 AM
    2:10 AM
    2:40 AM
    3:10 AM

    What now?

    Hack the messages?

    2:35 AM → 2:01 AM

    2:55 AM → 2:02 AM

    2:10 AM → 2:03 AM

    2:40 AM → 2:04 AM
    …

    Ask Dana

    Dana: "Those times are not used by clinicans. It's safe to change them."

    Next Actions

    What country has Daylight Saving Time next?

    Are our other products affected?

    Ask the developers how quickly they can fix it

    Ask our customers to get ready to install the fix

    …

    I love programming…

    but my job isn't programming.

    END

    More people you might run into…

    Coders

    Testers

    Sherry: When I add two patients with the same name, the OK button stops working.

    But only in Internet Explorer. It's fine in Chrome and Firefox.

    It worked this morning. I noticed you and Toby just made some changes…

    Support

    Pearlmill: We've got a problem.

    this takes priority over… any other work

    UX

    Nilu: It takes 4 clicks to get from one patient to the next.

    Nurses have to do this hundreds of times a day – we should get it down to one click.

    Lots more

    Project managers

    Team leaders

    Business analysts

    Clinical consultants…

    ---