From the consulting room: A design democracy

This article first appeared on Microsoft’s NHS Resource Centre on 08 March 2011 (site now defunct; ).

After he wrote about needing local codes in EMIS Web, the company was on the phone to our GP columnist. Now he has a few other ideas… and would like readers to vote on them.

In my last column, I mentioned that EMIS Web appeared not to allow the use of local Read codes.

Some people who posted comments insisted we could do without them, and should do without them to avoid confusion if records were passed onto other practices.

To my mind, this missed my point about there being uses for local codes that don’t need to be passed on to the next practice. The majority of those who passed comment also seemed to see value in them.

And, as luck would have it, I was contacted by Sean Riddell, chief executive of EMIS, who said the company had seen the article, discussed it, and agreed they need to go in.

I’ve subsequently had a brief conversation with EMIS’ GP head of coding, who seems to have fully grasped what I meant, and is working on introducing them ASAP.

He mentioned that my last column was perhaps the most influential article ever written about EMIS. So while I had the ear of the powerful, I took the opportunity to mention a couple of other things on my wish list of must-have features.

The pain of wish lists

I’m afraid that, at this point, I may have turned into a nuisance. I know from personal experience what a pain wish lists can be.

I write smartphone software and most of the reviews of my output tend to be positive or constructively critical, which is fine. Some, however, just seem to misunderstand what the software is for.

They post a poor review and demand – yes, demand - a whole series of as-yet-unthought-of features that they must have to make the app worthwhile for their purposes.

The majority of my users wouldn’t want the majority of these bolt-on features, and there would therefore be no guarantee that I would make a return on my investment in programming them.

Now, it’s true that I operate in a different marketplace. Application stores have thousands of apps that do similar things and you pick the one you like most.

GP computing, on the other hand, has a few big suppliers, and although I ostensibly have a choice it would be a huge project to move services just because I don’t like the way a particular system underlines a drug.

Furthermore, big companies will have a roadmap of features and fixes. Some are brave enough to publish their roadmaps, to varying degrees of acclaim.

Talking to customers – digitally

Let’s take the example of Things, a great to-do app. The company which produces Things is very open with its roadmap and has been telling people for ages that a perfect over-the-air sync feature is coming.

Some users have stuck with them because of this; some have got fed up of waiting and left. But at least you know what might be round the corner and what is being worked on, even if there isn’t any direct customer input.

Dropbox, which is a massive favourite of mine, has a different approach. It has produced something called Votebox. This lets customers create ideas for what they would like to see in the software. Then users can vote on them, giving each idea a priority.

It’s really cool feeling that as a user I have some input (although it can be disheartening if one of the features that I think would be great has hardly any votes!)

Now, Dropbox doesn’t promise to develop according to the votes, but it must give them a big feel for what its customer base wants.

A wish list for EMIS Web

Bringing this back to healthcare IT, how does EMIS – or, to stop picking on them, PCTI, Microsoft, ICE or any other supplier - know what their customers want?

I did a quick email around my local practice managers asking them to ask their teams what their wish lists were for IT functionality in general. Some of the thoughts made interesting reading – however, it is difficult to judge how many people would like some of the ideas turned into reality.

Luckily, while I was browsing the NHS web tools site, I found Ideascale. It’s free to use and allows you to create wish lists and vote accordingly. Again; I’m not picking on EMIS; it’s just that I spend 85% of my time using their system. Feel free to add other ideas; or, indeed, to create your own lists.

The last time I asked readers to do something, only two did. But if this is successful, I wonder if some of the companies we all deal with all the time might think of doing market research this way?

A final thought is that I’ve been contacted by lots of sales people over the past year about products their companies have produced for GP commissioning. Yet few have asked what I want, or need…

About the author:

Dr Neil Paul is a full time partner at Sandbach GPs, a large (21,000 patient) practice in a semi rural Cheshire. Until recently, he was on the PEC of Central and East Cheshire Primary Care Trust, with responsibility for Urgent Care and IT.

He is now on a journey into the unknown. He is on the board of his local consortium, one of many on a pilot leadership programme, and looking at provider opportunities. He recently set up a successful primary care clinical trials unit and is involved in several exciting IT projects.

Further information:

Dr Neil Paul is a regular columnist on the EHI Primary Care website where this piece originally appeared.

Tags: dr neil paul, emis web