It is possible that social historians will look back on 2020 as the year when e-medicine came of age. In countries with well-established healthcare services, internet cables hummed the louder as the COVID-19 drawbridge was raised in surgeries, clinics, hospitals and care homes. Indeed, future generations may shake their heads in disbelief that as soon as people got ill, whether infectious or not, they congregated in close proximity to other ill people in order to seek treatment. Our own pride in eradicating the horrors of the isolation hospital may seem misplaced to our children’s children.
However, although remote diagnosis and treatment have become the norm, we should guard against a new complacency based on the internet, microprocessors and 5G-communications. They can be as severely affected by virus infection (adventitious or malign) as any human being. In the rush to embrace technology, there should be a back-up “plan B” to cope when the cables break, the electricity supply fails, or a mistaken coding loop cannot be remedied by switching off and switching back on again. Maybe thoughts on Plan B will be the basis for a future post.
There is also the human-machine interface, beloved by acronymists as HMI. In conjunction with the demands of data protection, e-medicine has not yet resolved the most obvious challenge of the real-world clinic – most medical appointments are made by the elderly. No matter how computer-literate older people have become as their aging has tracked the internet age, the combined effects of gradual physical, sensory and cognitive impairment are ultimately not compatible with the operation of current technology.
Although it is convenient for both healthcare professional and active patient to deliver primary community healthcare by newly-adopted technology, that benefit falls away as the gap in technical ability widens between the youthful provider and the aging patient. Even if the technology is left predominantly in the hands of the provider by continuing to offer face-to-face consultations, it cannot be utilised if the patient cannot manipulate the technology for booking an appointment in the first place.
Recognising that effective communication is as important for the development and delivery of healthcare as the science and technology that underpins it, Queen’s House Consulting suggests the following provocative eight-point prompt for developers to simulate the experience of less-able users when designing and testing e-medicine systems:
- Try locating the device “on” switch on a rotating wheel somewhere inside the device, operated by finger proximity alone
- Try using a keyboard/touchscreen interface with blurred letters/numbers
- Try wearing thick, rigid gardening gloves while using the software
- Try controlling access with 100-digit passwords which must be memorised
- Try using instructions (written or audio) translated into a foreign language
- Try waiting 60 seconds between each required input
- Try running the sequence of tasks in random order
- Try entering information which is not offered as an option
Sometimes the developer is so attuned to their product that it is difficult to see it through the eyes of a novice. Queen’s House Consulting can offer an independent assessment to maximise the ease of use in real-world situations. If you are a developer and would like to explore such a service, please contact Queen’s House Consulting to discuss your particular needs.