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.