Dr Neil Paul

Track and Trace - would you reply on Excel?

· Originally posted on LinkedIn, Dec 2022

If you were tasked with setting up a world beating track and trace system - would you choose to rely on Microsoft excel and an old version at that?

I’ve just come across this fascinating story (from the amazing Tim Harford) where PHE did exactly that and put lives at risk partly because someone didn’t understand the difference between a database and a spreadsheet and partly because presumably they didn’t have the funding to pay for the updates!

https://lnkd.in/eyVwh4Rx

Apologies if you’ve heard/seen this before - its been out a while but was only pointed out to me this week.

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