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March 27, 2006
Lost in migration
Another failing government IT project made the headlines earlier this month, appearing in the mainstream (The Telegraph) and IT (Computing) press, but this one caught my eye for some rather personal reasons. The project in question is the migration of patient records at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford - and the headline in The Telegraph, Hospital computer system may 'lose' patients, particularly worried me - you see I'm an outpatient at the centre.
The Nuffield was the first hospital to go live with the new NHS patient records computer system as part of the NPfIT programme, but it experienced so many problems that it issued a serious untoward incident report, amid fears for patient safety. This could involve patients being "lost" from waiting lists or being called in for treatment, so it was a great relief to me today that the receptionists at the Nuffield were expecting me when I attended an appointment.
The project went live just before Christmas, even though the validation and migration of data were incomplete. A report to Nuffield's board on 6th March described the issues resulting from the data migration as "critical", but this is only one of a long list of failings in this project: staff reported that, Major configuration and software problems led to significant operational disruption, and potential risk to patient safety, business continuity, staff morale, and public and patient confidence.
I'm pleased to report that I saw no evidence of these problems at the hospital today. I did spot two examples of poor data quality during my visit though. The first was the clock on the parking meter that was an hour fast (following the start of British Summer Time at the weekend). The second was the age old challenge of a doctor's handwriting causing the radiologist to call my doctor to confirm what x-rays she required.
I'm equally pleased to say that the company I work for, Datanomic, is providing tools and expertise to help NHS trusts successfully migrate their data from legacy Patient Administration Systems to the Local Service Providers and the "Spine". If you'd like to learn more about this, visit Datanomic here.
Copyright © 2006 Steve Tuck - All Rights Reserved
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Posted by Steve Tuck at 7:45 PM
March 3, 2006
Business Intelligence requires the Freshest Ingredients
Business Intelligence systems have, for the most part, been dreary failures. But not in the restaurant industry. There, the payoffs have been significant. So what have you been doing wrong? And what are they doing right?
So says Merideth Levinson in an article for CIO magazine, The Brain Behind The Big, Bad Burger And Other Tales Of Business Intelligence.
The article tells the story of how the burger chain, Hardee's, used BI to identify a gap in the market. Despite the heightened awareness of healthy eating, Hardee's BI system identified that Americans would have the appetite for a Monster Thickburger, providing more than 1,400 calories and an artery-clogging 107 grammes of fat. But what caught my attention was the emphasis put on the need for any BI initiative to be underpinned by quality data.
The key to getting accurate insights from BI systems is standard data. "Data quality remains a very overlooked issue in business intelligence, but a massive one," says Gartner's Friedman. "I continue to see failures due to a lack of attention to data quality." Data is the most fundamental component of any BI endeavor. It's the building blocks for insight. Companies have to get their data stores and data warehouses in good working order before they can begin extracting and acting on insights. If not, they'll be operating based on flawed information.
Copyright © 2006 Steve Tuck - All Rights Reserved
Posted by Steve Tuck at 3:15 PM | TrackBack
March 2, 2006
This Week - San Francisco : Next week - Who Knows!
Greetings from the CDI-MDM Summit in San Francisco. I'm scheduled to fly back to the UK on Sunday, but an e-mail I received from Virgin Atlantic last night has got me worried - apparently they think I'm flying to Miami.
The UK is currently suffering what the BBC is describing as "the coldest weather this year" so maybe I'd be better of in Miami, but I'd really just like to go home, Sir Richard (Branson), if you don't mind.
Of course, I've checked my booking on-line; the booking reference in the e-mail is different to the one on my account and my flight to London is still there. My guess is that I've received someone else's booking details and that "computer error" will be blamed if I ever get an explanation from Virgin Atlantic. I wonder how many customers have received confusing e-mails from Virgin today quoting the wrong flight details...
The impact of poor data quality is not always easy to quantify. The direct cost to Virgin of sending out a few thousand erroneous e-mails is trivial in the scheme of things. But what is the true cost of this data quality problem?
- How many customers have been inconvenienced and spent time checking their bookings?
- How many extra calls (at premium rate) have been made to the Virgin Atlantic call centre?
- How does this apparent incompetence in handling customer bookings impact people's view of the Virgin brand?
They say that as a rule of thumb a satisfied customer will tell up to two people about their experience, while a dissatisfied customer will tell ten. I guess that statistic pre-dates blogging. ;o)
Copyright © 2006 Steve Tuck - All Rights Reserved
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