Mundane facts about your day: Part Deux.

Glam

Mad Cat Woman
Yes, I know, it's a day late. Chemo kicking in a bit.

Yesterday I spent 6 hours in a chemo-therapy chair for a two hour treatment. The reason being the new computer system in the hospital had thrown a wobbler. This meant my blood tests from 2 days ago were gone, so I had to have another prior to treatment.

This system has been in for three weeks, ‘The worst three weeks I’ve ever had in this job,’ the nurse told me. ‘Patients records, treatments, pharmacy notes just keep disappearing off the screen.’

Imagine how dangerous that could be in a chemo-therapy room.

Curious I asked if this new software was produced ‘in house’ at the NHS. ‘Oh no,’ she replied. ‘All that disappeared years ago. It’s bought in privately from an American company, but it seems incompatible with NHS ways of doing things.’

So after six hours (started prior to 1000 and finished just after 1600 hours) I was released back into the world.

Have no complaints about the staff or the treatment, they ran about like blue arsed flies and they all looked tired, if still good humoured …(I suspect medical humour is a bit like infantry humour. Dark, and a way to deal with it when things get rough.)

But, call me cynical if you like, I suspect this creeping privatization is mostly driven by brown envelopes being slid across the polished surfaces of meeting room tables. Somebody somewhere wants a bloody good kick up the arse. (Let's start at the top, and prune downwards for a change.)

OK, rant over. Put it down to chemo aftermath. (I still f****** mean it though.)
My OH is a CA in private sector maintaining and selling IT to a hospital trust at the moment. Only one hospital trust mind you, because they aren't allowed to have a joined up system.
We use something called RIO. I have no idea what the County use. Ours is also used by Redwoods over in Shrewsbury and various other members of staff employed by St.Georges. It was also used by the George Bryan centre and I think Margaret Stanhope before both closed.
We can get blood results from the County, because they're on ICE.
We can't see Countys thing, they can't see ours.
Last week, the whole computer thing went down, the server was blamed, it was bliss. We weren't beholden to the machine in front of us for hours and hours. But we had a mad rush to input everything when it came back on at 5am.
How nice it would be to be able to communicate to other hospitals online.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Fully agree @Glam. Surely that's what computer systems should be all about ... communication. (With some exceptions in a former job of mine, but that's a different game.) Watching the nurses struggle with on screen displays because the new system has gone weird is clearly stressful and I can understand this because I've been there myself. :|
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
From what I gather when I looked into it many years ago, the problem is all hospitals did things a little bit differently. That made it really hard to make a one size fits all solution, so instead they paid a fortune for a company to make something that did it differently to all of them making everything worse.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Just live tracking (stalking) my wifes drive home, imagine if you had to stop at every border and justify yourself! Will feel happier once she's past Kaliningrad.
 

Gadget

Well-Known Forumite
Today I'm feeling rather old. Remember back in the old days when possibly your Gran or an aunt or something would say they had 'bad legs' and didn't want them touched, they were swollen and hurt to walk around on? Well this is me currently. A bit of Googling when this started a couple of weeks ago suggested cellulitis and to get off to the Dr. Well It being towards the end of the month, we were broke so I've not been able to afford to go to the Dr. Things have not improved and I bloody well hurt and don't feel well to go with it. Got me worst leg stuck up on a bean bag and pillow but the burning stinging from my ankle tells me it's not really helping. I'd bugger off to the walk -in but yet again no taxi money.
My Mom is playing the I'm much worse than you card right now so a lift isn't in the offing and much as I love my son in law he's farking useless if you need to go anywhere. Once he parks on his space, he's not moving that car unless it's work time or Eldest Spawn has booked him, in advance for something.
So roll on bloody Monday and I'll either be outside the Dr's waiting for them to open or waiting at the walk in.
Sorry for the rant. I'm feeling rather sore and sorry for myself.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Today I'm feeling rather old. Remember back in the old days when possibly your Gran or an aunt or something would say they had 'bad legs' and didn't want them touched, they were swollen and hurt to walk around on? Well this is me currently. A bit of Googling when this started a couple of weeks ago suggested cellulitis and to get off to the Dr. Well It being towards the end of the month, we were broke so I've not been able to afford to go to the Dr. Things have not improved and I bloody well hurt and don't feel well to go with it. Got me worst leg stuck up on a bean bag and pillow but the burning stinging from my ankle tells me it's not really helping. I'd bugger off to the walk -in but yet again no taxi money.
My Mom is playing the I'm much worse than you card right now so a lift isn't in the offing and much as I love my son in law he's farking useless if you need to go anywhere. Once he parks on his space, he's not moving that car unless it's work time or Eldest Spawn has booked him, in advance for something.
So roll on bloody Monday and I'll either be outside the Dr's waiting for them to open or waiting at the walk in.
Sorry for the rant. I'm feeling rather sore and sorry for myself.
Hope you're OK, if I didn't have eric here I'd come and take you :hug:
 

Cue

Well-Known Forumite
From what I gather when I looked into it many years ago, the problem is all hospitals did things a little bit differently. That made it really hard to make a one size fits all solution, so instead they paid a fortune for a company to make something that did it differently to all of them making everything worse.
Correct, and they usually hire a company that will farm it out to somewhere with “okay” programming skills but absolutely dire UI/UX knowledge

I know a guy who could easily make a very efficient and easy to use interface for hospitals, and it honestly wouldn’t even be the most complex thing I’ve written this week, but good luck with the weekly meetings for 5 years to establish the spec.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Correct, and they usually hire a company that will farm it out to somewhere with “okay” programming skills but absolutely dire UI/UX knowledge

I know a guy who could easily make a very efficient and easy to use interface for hospitals, and it honestly wouldn’t even be the most complex thing I’ve written this week, but good luck with the weekly meetings for 5 years to establish the spec.
At the time we looked into it, wasn't that complicated really, but I'd want access to staff not managers when speccing it out.
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
Up at 4am starting washing & putting on clothes maids in the conservatory to dry. Feeling so ill and sweating so much I got through all the sheets and duvets covers , nighties etc I owned within a couple of hours and resorted to bath towels as bedding.

Hubby is now sitting down with me this morning actually looking at paperwork , as previously he didn't have a foggiest of what paperwork we have and where it is. Actually realises now that one day I can snuff it!

Was moaning about new GP wanting to give me a health check & tests tomorrow, but now kind of glad I'm going so that hopefully they can check out what's wrong me while there .... (Been taking covid tests twice daily all week , but still saying negative)
 
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