POL, V2012, S10, Internet, Intranet, oh my!

Patient Connection, Vision2012, and the S10 (aka morgue) app are wrapping up finally, I think.  And that’s a good thing as the two big projects on my horizon are the redesign efforts for peacehealth.org and the Crossroads intranet.  These will be long-term projects that will take up most, if not all of my time.  I’m the lead on the Crossroad’s project and am doing a bunch of research on intranets, especially health care related ones.  User centered design should be a big part of this, as will working with an outside design agency.  This will be challenging, complex work – I’m really looking forward to it!

Current Work

Let’s see.  The S10 (aka Morgue) app is nearing completion – actually it’s pretty much done, we’re just waiting on the Desktop reps to figure out the NT groups so that users can sign on and start using this app.  The Org Health Survey is proceeding – should be able to start working with some users soon to see how they actually interact with the existing survey tool.  Patient Connection is heating up.  We now have v11 installed and it’s ready to go live on 9/22 – unfortunately before we can do any user testing.  But we’re still going to do user testing and apply any changes to the app while it’s live.  These will for the most part be small, incremental changes that won’t warrant a whole rollout or anything major like that, so it should be OK.

Looks like I’m going to be attached to a couple major projects coming up:  A redesign of our internet site, and one of our intranet.  Both of these will take a lot of work, but I’m looking forward to helping design a task-driven, user data supported site.  It should be a big improvement!

The new hospital – RiverBend – is now open.  I was there to help during its opening and worked a couple different support desks, answering calls and logging them into an issue tracker.  Not very challenging work, but it felt good to be part of the effort.  It’s a very impressive hospital.

Hospitalist, S10, Patient Portal, RiverBend

Well, the hospitalist project went to another team once we started talking with the customers and discovered that their needs could be better met with a custom-built report.

The S10 app proceeds.  The customers really want it done by Aug 8th so that they have time to train their staff and fold it into their new processes at RiverBend.  SA may have it done by then…  Also still working on the security issues involved with having area morticians sign-on to the app.  Should be doable without too much trouble, I think.  So far the customers have liked what they’ve seen!

D and I are getting ready to do user testing on the newest version of Patient Connection (Patient Portal).  The new version will be piloted in Longview, and we’re doing most of our testing there, but will also do some user testing here in Bellingham and probably in Eugene as well.  We’re still waiting to see the newest version, though, so can only prepare so much at this point.

I’ll be heading down to Eugene for 10 days in early August to help with the opening of PeaceHealth’s new hospital, RiverBend.  Should be an interesting trip.  I’ll be working a shift every day at the help center, though I’m not exactly sure yet what I’ll be doing there.

Hospitalist App, Post Eval, S10

Began working on a new app for hospitalists, but during the preliminary scope meeting it was discovered that what the customers need may be better accomplished with a report generated by a different team.  Now I need to wait until it’s determined whether or not that team can really fill all the customer’s needs.  If not then the project will come back to my team.

Had my first evaluation yesterday and it went really well.  I received high marks for my work in all categories (productivity, team contribution, customer satisfaction, adherence to core values, and job function/team skills), so that was gratifying.  Got good feedback from my manager and was able to give him my views on the challenges currently facing our team, as well as what my professional development goals are for the next year.  After working here for a little over a year I can say that I really love my job, the kind of work I do, and the environment I’m working in.  I really feel like I’m making a positive difference.

The S10 app is being coded and will hopefully be available for viewing sometime in the next couple of weeks.  Went through another design iteration on the UI screens, simplifying the entry screens and consolidating fields that were repeated across various forms.  The result should be a more efficient and usable interface for the S10 customers.  Can’t wait to test the UI with the customers once it’s fully coded.

I also continue to be consulted for various projects including FAQs, Help Pages, Intranet and Internet content, layout and best practices.  Enough to keep me busy!

S10, RiverBend, Self Evals

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here…

My latest project has been a redesign of a 10yr old Access DB used to track “expired” patients in a hospital morgue.  It was very interesting to talk to the customers for this one, and has continued to be interesting as work moves into development.  The morgue is called Surgery 10 in the hospital so we’ve named this app S10.  We’re doing a phased release approach to this one, getting basic functionality down before the big RiverBend opening and then adding some new functionality later, such as allowing non-employees to access discrete areas of the DB when needed.

Speaking of RiverBend, this is a huge new hospital in the Eugene/Springfield area that’s opening to the public in August.  I was just down there for our team’s bi-annual face-to-face meeting and we toured the new hospital.  It’s pretty nice, very big, and has some great patient-centric features, such as every room being private and equipped with beds for visiting family to stay.  I’ll be heading back down there in August to help out in some way during the opening week.

I’m also currently working on my first PH self evaluation.  I have to provide a narrative of what I’ve done in the past year and how that has fit in with my role’s job expectations.  I just began listing out everything I’ve worked on in the past 12 months and it’s a pretty good list!  No wonder I’ve felt busy…

Work update

Design work on the reportal is winding down and moving into the developer’s hands, just in time for D’s honeymoon in New Zealand!  Since she’s been the main UX rep on this project it now falls to me to answer UX design questions if needed.  I’m feeling fairly confident about that, though there’s no way I know as much about the project as D does.  But I’ve sat in on so many meetings with the customers and application developer that I think I’ll be able to answer most, if not all of the questions that may come up in her absence.

The MOSS Sharepoint redesign of the Healthcare Improvement Division (HID) intranet site has moved into the usability testing phase.  I have a selected group of users testing the new site and am collecting feedback from them via email.  I’ve also written a satisfaction survey using the SUS model.

 The Global Trigger Tool also in the development phase and should be ready for usability testing in the next few weeks.

January Update

Projects still truckin’ along:

MOSS HID Den pilot site.   The design work for the Global Trigger Tool is completed, as well as v1 of the BRD – now I’m awaiting the assignment of a developer to work with on it.  The Oregon region website work is still pending.  I completed the review of the applicant pages and handed off my findings and recommendations – the customer was very pleased with my work.  The Reportal project is heating up with some solid work on metadata creation coming next week.

The only new project as of today is helping with a new intranet FAQ tool’s GUI standards.  Sounds interesting, but I haven’t received any details yet.

Continue to work on our iDUX sharepoint site, and study, study, study!