User Experience Nightmare – In Hospital

Yesterday I went into hospital as a day case, when the nurses who were doing all of the pre-operation checks knew what my job was they decided to show me the software that they were using.

It was very interesting.

The software was very complex and the nurses had to know some amazing tricks to get it to do what it was supposed to do. At my initial check-in asked me a number of basic questions, when it came to the pre-operation checks they asked me the same questions again. Both times they asked the basic questions they asked me my height and weight, both times the software was supposed to convert the number that I gave them. I deliberately gave the same answer both times just to see, and both times it failed even though the two nurses entered the details differently.

The lack of intelligence in the questions being asked by the system were mostly masked by the nurses. Every now and then they would skip over a load of question when I asked them what the questions were they said that they were all questions that were only pertinent to a woman, or a person under 16 etc.

I was also struck by how impersonal it was that myself and the nurses were both pointing towards the computer to answer personal questions. If it was me, I would implement the use of tablets for this one reason. Using tablets would definitely let the nurse face the patient, in the same way as paper used to do.

Clearly no-one had thought about the user experience here.