Re: SLAs make work for idle hands...
We had a similar system introduced for out of hours doctor care.
This was just before NHS 0845 4647 around 2004/5.
There was a really simple and reliable database system, that was at the HQ, multiple bases and mobile terminals.
Worked really well , and was loved by the centre staff m
However it had poor report generation. So a new system was brought in.
Time to make a cup of tea.
So, the management decreed it was the best thing since the toast slice and wheel combined.
And it would be faster and better than it's replacement.
Ok. Great.
Yeah. For the first several weeks, we were using paper logs, faxing data all around and then had to rely on 1 landline emergency backup phone when it went belly up and somehow took out the phone system.
That was one Saturday morning, the busiest time for us, of course.
In the following weeks, many updates and tweeks were made, it became more stable, and it was all we could use.
So we made it work. Or so we thought.
One fairly hot bank holiday weekend, the server room AC failed, so everything went off or shutdown.
Even the phone system. But it was ok, that previous disaster had produced some backup mobiles. Yay !
Which then identified another problem.
Because our base terminals were all talking to the now switched off servers at HQ, no one could access the patient data, or clinical notes. So patients arrived, and the doctors were writing everything on paper, which as you can imagine doctor's writing to be, was a series of mostly wiggly lines that could only be read by Egyptologists.
So, a new backup paper system was used to log the patients at base and mobile appointments, with the corresponding case file number next to it.
Of course, when the system was back up, all those paper notes had to be inputted, so that took several days, luckily before the next weekend.
What had been learned helped, as we were hit with wide power blackouts a few months later, and we had learned enough so it wasnt a total disaster and people got seen.